Cyclists these days seem to think disc brakes are essential. I was looking through some of my old photos recently and found this one - Over the years I had more than 50 bikes of my own and test rode at least 1500 different bikes - probably a lot more (I owned a bike shop and test riding repaired bikes was one of my regular jobs)
But I only ever owned one with disc brakes - this 97 Diamondback X2 which I rebuilt with upgraded parts - it had top of the line Hope brakes that were selling for crazy $ back in the 90's - they started out retailing for NZ$2700 for a pair, and got gradually cheaper, but I bought all the gear on this bike fairly cheap - the complete bike cost about NZ$3k all up when I built it up in 97.
Truth is I always preferred old school hard tails and wished they had a downhill race class for them - I was never really any faster on full suspension - and this bike felt too heavy for my tastes, as did all full suspension bikes.
