Why the Magura HSxx hydraulic rim brakes are the very best brakes for a tourer, a commuter, a utility biker
I'm not keen on bicycle disc brakes of the standard type that fit to the hub. I find them uncontrollable and grimly demanding of attention if you don't want them to plant you on your on face on the unyielding tarmac. As an aside, even that function powerful modern roller brakes from Shimano performs more smoothly, less expensively, and with less maintenance. But for a tourer or a commuter, who wants low-stress brakes, both kinds demand too much concentration and attention.
Rim brakes are generally smoother and less demanding of attention in operation and maintenance in extended use.
Your standard cable-operated rim brake is in fact a low-stress disc brake, with the entire rim of the wheel as its disc. It is a component proven good enough by time. But "good enough" is the enemy of the best. It comes as no surprise, to me at least, that the thoughtful cyclist can do better still.
If you lust after hydraulic discs, and your bicycle's fork and rear triangle don't have fittings for them, there's a really fine touring hydraulic disc brake that bolts straight on to rim brake fitments. It is the Magura HS11, HS22 and HS33, so here's three pages of currently catalogued Magura HS hydraulic rim brakes in touring and urban, trail and high-power versions, in singles, sets, more complete (easy-fit) sets, with service and replacement parts (you can leave them off -- in 10000km I haven't touched any of the spares and maintenance bits I bought).
https://www.bike-components.de/de/s/?keywords=Maura%20HS (https://www.bike-components.de/de/s/?keywords=Maura%20HS)
Voila, the best disc brakes for tourers, ever!
(http://www.magura.com/media/2705/647x559__0024_hs22_01.png)
Magura HS22 hydraulic rim brake for touring and urban bicycles
BTW, my ten-year-old HS11 were chosen because they were less powerful than the alternative HS33 and therefore more progressive; the last thing a tourer wants when he is fatigued after a long day in the saddle is brakes that require conscious attention every time you apply them, under threat of a face-plant. The difference was in the size of the oil pressure chamber, larger and thus at lower pressure in the HS11 than the HS33. However, these days the HS11 and HS33 (and presumably the HS22 too) are operationally all the same, differing merely in cosmetics and fitting possibilities, though an external upside-down U-brace is available to stiffen the top of the fork above the caliper mounts and thereby stiffen up brake-response -- and thus make it more sudden. I have the brace -- in a box under a workbench, not on my bike, because it creates exactly the sort of attention-demanding brake response I hated on hub-centre discs and the best of the roller brakes. As you've gathered, I think you should leave the testosterone parked elsewhere when specifying the brakes on your bike, and in this regard the Magura HS system offers you the widest possibilities to tailor the response curve of any braking system known to me.
I have had all sorts of standard rim brakes, hub-fit discs both cable and hydraulic (both of them a PITA because they chewed pads at a rate of knots), roller discs both ancient and new (Shimano's IM70 series is superior to most, possibly all, of its disc brakes, but too sudden and too powerful for a commuter or tourer) -- and I have no hesitation in naming the Magura HSxx hydraulic rim brakes as the very best brakes for a tourer, a commuter, a utility biker, not only for the way they operate so smoothly and progressively and powerfully and securely, but because they are a fit and forget installation, self-adjusting, zero bleeding, zero service (the oil is sealed in for life, which appears to be indefinite, the fluid impervious to water), and my 10k brake blocks appear good to go that far again, perhaps twice that far.
© Andre Jute 2017