(an old magazine feature showed loads of pads going into a kiln)
That'll be the sintered ones, it the standard way they're made, hence my thinking sintered pads don't require the heat element of bedding suggested in the article in the OP.
Bike Forum
bedding in pads - is this bollox?
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Posted 4 months ago #
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TandemJeremy - Member
Devs another one who does notwear out brakes!Info would be nice ta
- what brakes?
Riding style? fast / slow? Brake dragger or hard use or light use?Good, more systematic.
My pads last ages. The pads in my Magura Louises have lasted over a year even with regular riding. I bedded them in, weight 12st, not sure of my braking style, but i'm not one of the faster riders i know.
Posted 4 months ago # -
When I lived in sheffield I used hope C2's, some hayes 9's then shimano XTR's. Being a uni student I'd not ridden in the peaks in summer untill this years summertime pootle! Couldn't say which brake lasted longer as I didnt have them all at the same time.
But the key to getting any life at all from them was to drag the brake all the way from Crookes high street, to the arts tower, basicly every ride started with the brakes getting so hot the levers well and trully pumped up and the pad backing discoloured making a cool pattern showing the airflow arround the piston!
Posted 4 months ago # -
Hope 180/160 calipers, SS red pads, no deliberate "bedding in" just normal hard and late braking.
Type of riding, everything from daily tow path/bridleway commute to singletrack - local conditions are loamy soil with some sandy bits.
I try to brake as lttle and as late as possible and don't drag.Roughly 500 miles a month, pads changed about once a year and even then there's some left......
Posted 4 months ago # -
Any more want to share their tales of brake life / riding style etc?
Posted 4 months ago # -
What you trying to prove TJ?
I personally think anyone who gets through brake pads at an alarming rate simply either brakes far too much or uses their brakes badly.currently I have 203, 185 and 160 discs as appropriate for the particular bike in question. brakes are currently Juicys (all sintered)and SLX(organic/resin?). I've only* used sintered pads for well over 10 years (prob closer to 15).
some of the brakes I've lots of experience using are BB7s, Juicys, Hayes, Hopes, Shimano.. there are many many more I've used but it doesn't really matter what brake I have I don't ever go through pads quickly!
Oh.. and I never bed pads in! preferring to just use brakes when they're actually required instead*the new(ish) SLX I have on my hardtail I believe came with organic/resin (and funnily enough feel underwhelming) but even with those shitty pads after 9mths there are no real signs of wear
to the dick that suggested I'd need new rims every year with V-brakes Don't make me laugh.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Not try to prove anything in particular - trying to get to the reason why some folk get rapid pad wear 'cos its an interesting conundrum as its not as simple as braking more - more wear
Posted 4 months ago # -
I have Hope mono mini's on my Orange 5 - I weigh 90Kg with 183mm disks each end and original Hope organic pads. I had a half worn set when I started a four day trip to the Alps last summer which finished with the Passeporte de soleil. I had no issues with the brakes at all, no overheating, no fade I could discern and at the end I couldn't see any appreciable extra wear. Others on the same trip with Hope M4's seemed to have had some fade at times and have had more wear. Admittedly they were faster than me but I was probably on the brakes longer than them. Could this be that the mini's were running hotter?
I have experienced brake fade with the M960 XTR brakes on my Litespeed locally on the Malverns so I don't think it is technique?
Edit: I always have tried to bed the brakes in every time I change themPosted 4 months ago # -
running Avid X0 brakes on my bike, with sintered pads
on New Year's day, went and rode for 6 hours on Pitch Hill, Surrey in foul conditions including deep mud and rain storm, lots of slithery braking action but not heat build up to speak of?
lost 3/4 of the material on very new, but bedded-in disc brake pads
(brakes bedded in by doing 30 emergency stops down a steep hill off Highgate, London) and 2 XC rides in NW london on relatively flat ground in dry conditions
Hope disc brake pads are somewhat different to other "manufacturers" in that Hope make the backing plates in-house, and then ship the backing plates to automotive manufacturer EBC who apply the material to the backing plates and then heat treat them
do other cycle brake pad manufacturers bother with this?
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW - Member
to the dick that suggested I'd need new rims every year with V-brakes Don't make me laugh.
This is the dick that suggested that, because I used to, smart arse! Ever considered a career in diplomacy GW?Posted 4 months ago # -
I don't believe a long bedding in is necessary. I think it is an 'old wives' tale. I would imagine the compound gets all the pressure it's ever going to be subjected to after a few sharp stops.
I think bedding in is just the short period of time it takes to get the pad to conform optimally to the surface of the disc.
Posted 4 months ago # -
From a mountain biker in the early 90s who used to ride in a lot of muddy & gritty conditions, i can concur that i became pretty good at swapping rims
Due to the massive splits in the sidewall of the rim, I was typically swapping the rear rim every 3 months during autumn and winter
How i love disc brakes!!
Posted 4 months ago # -
boltonjon, clearly we are both dicks then! I rode a lot in the '90s in central scotland and a Mavic 231CD would last about a year before being so worn the sidewalls would crack and split.
GW who's the dick now? You are clearly in need of some love from somewhere......Posted 4 months ago # -
I used to get through a lot of rims from brake wear, it must have been noticeable in mavic's profits when evveryone switched to discs and stopped having to replace their rims every few months.
I think bedding in is just the short period of time it takes to get the pad to conform optimally to the surface of the disc.
Have to say I err on the side of this too.
Might be interesting for a magazine to do a test of 'bedded in' vs out of the packet pads in a controlled environment, if any magaziney types are reading this and haven't died of boredom yet.
Posted 4 months ago # -
bigjim - read the link I put up about it. the layer of disc material on the pad is crucial
curing them under heat and pressure is more relevant to organic pads but still occurs with sintered
Posted 4 months ago # -
Bedding waste of time huh? Whilst some were swapping pads every lap I did 14 laps of a very gritty muddy puffer without a single pad change. Read it and weep Princesses.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I only put new pads in the front so you can really cook them up, you cannot get much into the rear, whatever you do. I live on the side of an over 300m hill, mind.
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW who's the dick now?
clearly you!
What are you so scared of that you're wearing out braking surfaces on rims?Posted 4 months ago # -
FWIW - I have a pair of Hope XC4s from ~99/2000
They use tiny rotors (150mm front, 130mm rear) and to this day I have only changed the pads in the rear once, and the front twice.
They don't get a huge amount of use these days as not on main bike but they did get several XC rides per week for the first 5 years of their life, and they have done 4 x mountain mayhems and 3 x bontrager 24/12s plus 1 season of local XC races and some local riding too on the pair of pads that are in there currently...and they are about 1/3 worn
I'm not the most brake happy rider i'll admit, but from personal experience I can support the small rotor/high heat = long long pad life argument.
(using hope OEM sintered pads)
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW
"clearly you!
What are you so scared of that you're wearing out braking surfaces on rims?"you were clearly a fair weather rider!!
amedias - i agree, my old 98/99 Hope mini pads lasted for 5 years
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW has been known to forget that not everyone is awesome.
Posted 4 months ago # -
Well here goes!.. I reckon the problem is something that folk dont talk about,or really know if they are keeping on top of it or not.
The amount of bikes with disc brakes i have worked on with either one pad dragging or both dragging,or maybe a tweaked rotor thrown in really amazes me.
Wheres Biff? After he fitted some pads in his bb7s i would bet that he (after he backed them off ;O)) used no more than 2 sets of pads throughout the race (god, please dont turn up and tell us you used 8 sets! haha)
Anyways,heres a pair of Hope pads removed on saturday night at the Puffer. Destroyed by mud,grit,disc and last but not least.. pistons! ( i wish i had a piston resetting tool that night amongst other tools that were forgotten <sigh>)
Pic courtesy of A.Urquhart (hope he doesnt kill me)
Posted 4 months ago # -
Am I the only one who thinks the necessity to do all this faffing points to poor construction and design of the disk brakes?
Posted 4 months ago # -
you were clearly a fair weather rider!!
When?
Summer 1978?funny thing about riding all weather/conditions is the worse the conditions the less you actually need to use your brakes as you are riding everything slower in the first place.
Posted 4 months ago # -
I ride mainly 180/160 hope mono mini/mono m4s and shimano XTs (760 iirc)
Sintered pads on the minis and XTs, organic on the M4s
Quite draggy with my brakes
Riding in the dry pads last for ever, wet it is very mixed.
Pads used during a dry spring/summer will normally last most of winter. Box fresh pads get shredded if fitted halfway round a wet ride. Mid winter rides can wreck a set of (even bedded in) fresh pads, but it's more about standing water than mud, puddles everywhere = bad, mud everywhere = not so bad.
All IME but the stuff TJ TINAS et al are saying concurs. I especially like the cheese/grater explanation, makes sense.Did switch back to rim brakes on my SS for a while as with constant wet weather riding I was getting through a lot of disc pads and I reckon 12-18months for a rear rim, quite a bit more for the front (drag my rear brake a lot).
Posted 4 months ago # -
epicyclo - Member
you may be right but have you got any better ideas?Am I the only one who thinks the necessity to do all this faffing points to poor construction and design of the disk brakes?
I'd quite like to see better pad retraction, seem to get a lot of pad wear without even braking on wet gritty rides, that scrr scrr scrr sound of pad/grit/rotor scuffing is the sound of expensive new pads to my ears. More pad material would be nice too.
All without increasing weight or price of course
Posted 4 months ago # -
D0NK - Member
you may be right but have you got any better ideas?Well for starters, how about an axle mounted pivot for the brake calliper? Then if the wheel is put in slightly squint, the disk is still running true to the calliper, or better, adopt one of the positively located through axle designs currently available and get rid of the existing QR system.)
For brakes that last in really muddy conditions, I use drum brakes.
Posted 4 months ago # -
interesting on the strathpuffer thread there are several people with loads of laps and minimal pad wear.
this really is a weird conundrum for sure.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/strathpuffer-updates/page/3
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW
With big enough hills, i could always get some speed up, regardless of the weather, and that was before we got all these modern suspension and brakes to make it easier....
You obviously lived somewhere very flat back in 1978!!
Posted 4 months ago # -
Wunundred!
Posted 4 months ago # -
A set of pads every two laps?!
Posted 4 months ago # -
jon - hmmm... let me see?.. back in 1978 I lived across from a very steep hill with a sharp blind R/H bend at the bottom.. **** suspension and brakes!! we used to skateboard it.
comfort (or as I prefer to call it "pooof braking") braking is for er.. well.. folk like you
TJ - it's not a conundrum - see above
Epi - again, in my mind it's a problem not needing any solution
Posted 4 months ago # -
GW - Member
...Epi - again, in my mind it's a problem not needing any solutionIt's not likely to be a problem to anyone here.
But pad replacement and setup requires too much technical knowledge by the user and that is a problem in my eyes.
And you don't want to see my solution
Posted 4 months ago # -
There's nothing really any more compicated about replacing the pads in any bicycle braking system tho..
I could teach most 10yr olds to replace disc pads in 10mins whereas most adults wouldn't get their heads around replacing V-brake pads in a night.. both jobs require a similar amount of fairly simple to follow steps to complete (same for most brake systems).Posted 4 months ago # -
skateboarding champion, top mechanic and never need to brake hero
What does GW stand for??
Posted 4 months ago #
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