Maybe I should have phrased my point more clearly. When I said ‘easily improveable,’ what I meant was designing lower weight bikes at the same or lesser price due to not having to conform to UCI design restrictions.
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I don’t see how this would work. Frames and bikes need to be developed, and many manufacturers do this by supporting pro teams. Weight weenie bikes will always be expensive, but entry-level and mid-level bikes have been getting heavier in the past few years as far as I know. And I reckon the reason is that it doesn’t make sense to save 100 g on a frame and fork if the pro bike equipped with DuraAce Di2 or Red eTap and all the doo-dads would come in at 6.4 rather than 6.5 kg.
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For me this was the issue and basically due to wheels. I just sold my rim brake bike and am biting the bullet. My cross/gravel bike has disc and many mountain bikes prior…it was inevitable.
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I heard someone else make this case recently too. He said that, rather than the pro teams adding ballast to crazy light bikes, the manufacturers now design their pro models to hit the UCI weight limit. As a result of this, the cheaper versions that most of the public would buy are actually heavier than previous models.
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I disagree. Have a look at the fastest-growing categories of cycling-with-dropbars — gravel bikes and do-it-all bikes (i. e. bikes that accept very wide tires). These would not be possible without wider tires, for examples, and many of these customers not only come from the road side, but also from the mountain biking side. If you have gotten used to disc brakes on a mountain bike, I dare say most would not want to give up hydraulic disc brakes. On average roadies are just way more conservative than people from other cycling communities. (I don’t even get the jokes about sock length discussions … 
).
Now we are in the fortunate position that you can get everything from a proper road race bike to a downhill mountain bike and anything in between.
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I think I heard the argument on a Youtube channel called Peak Torque, although I could be wrong. The guy who makes the videos is an avid cyclist and engineer. Maybe we both watch his videos?
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Yeah that’s the one. Interesting channel
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Yeah this is making me realize my weight weenie mindset is probably overblown. 
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Thats what is frustrating with having 5k to spend (which is a lot of money!) I should be getting 6.8kg bike for that kind of money which i can… but in rim brake… Subsequently at the same time the bike industry is like nahhh don’t get that everything is going disc so value for money is going down in my eyes. Which is why it’s such a hard choice.
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He is an engineering graduate and a very smart lad. I watch is videos regularly we can all learn from his videos. I definitely recommend.
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just to add another perspective here: i almost made the exact same post last week about the same bikes. The rim brake TCRs are significantly cheaper while also being lighter. It really seemed like a win/win from my perspective and the post I was going to make on these forums was something along the lines of “am i crazy for considering a rim brake bike in 2020?”
however the next day i went out for a ride in the morning and got caught in a light rain that wasn’t bad, but definitely made everything (including me!) wet. A few minutes after that I was going down a very small hill and approaching an intersection where a SUV was in the process of running through a stop sign while looking down at their phone. I grabbed a handful of brakes and luckily i was on my cross bike (with disc brakes) and i was able to slow down quickly and the entire thing was a non-event. However if i were on my rim brake bike it definitely would’ve been a different story.
anyway, that was the end of my debating, my next road bike is going to be disc for sure
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Multiple times per week for sure – any time I had to remove a wheel for any reason.
FWIW, I did have a disc brake bike with QR skewers. I work at a shop and do find that thru axles help keep the rotors centered for wheel removal – but even changing to a different wheel can cause rub if anything is a mm or two off. Plus it’s stupid easy to bang a rotor and have it go out of true, causing more rubbing. When I would sprint or climb hard, in my experience, the rotor would rub.
I got tired of brake rubbing and dealing with rubbing so I switched back to rim brakes. I run my brakes wicked wide open and have no issues with it.
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What did you back to? Or did you buy a new rim brake bike?
Went back to rim brake – now have a Specialized Allez Sprint.
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Voice of a contrarian. I had to make a similar choice when I bought a bike a few years back. I went with a rim brake bike to get the lightest stiffest bike I could afford. I love it and don’t regret it. Every time I stomp on the pedals it reaffirms my choice. I don’t race (road). I just try and climb with the young guns on group rides. For what it’s worht, I’d go with the lightest option.
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Good point. The pads for carbon rims are different. I have Zips Firecrest and I use there specific pads.
If you look around on like Pink Bike you can probably find a good deal on a used bike to get you to your 6.8kilo target bike.
Went with rim, contrary to popular belief. I do not have enough money to justify getting all new gear for trainers ect… in switching to disc plus I have 5+ rim wheels just laying around I can use for training, and just swap the brake pads.
I ended up getting the rim as well!
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