Long story short: Going touring, serviced and bled Deore brakes, fitted new front pads out of sealed packet, which I got with some secondhand brakes off the classifides. Bedded pads in as usual. Did slow 30 mile dry, flat, mostly road ride. Brakes still feel mushy. Assume I must have bled badly. Do about 6 miles today. Brakes start making hideous noise down a hill. Stop and examine. One pad is virtually worn through to the backing, the other half way there and both look very tatty like they were falling apart in bits. Both pistons moving freely.
Luckily I have my touring tool kit already packed, including new Superstar sintered pads. Fit SS pads. Brakes utterly perfect after 3 hard stops. Not mushy. Lots of power. Perfect. Great! (I know how to bleed brakes, but sometimes you doubt yourself, you know….?)
But those other pads were good ones (Goodrich) and from a brand new shrink wrapped card. BUT I have no idea how old they were, so, CAN unused brake pads go off???

Yes.

Thanks for that pearl of wisdom. Care to expand on that? 🙂

PS – we might show up at Mayhem on Saturday…..

Do you definitely know the pads were genuine? The orient in particular does a huge trade in counterfeit consumables.

“Yes”
Is this specific to bicycle brake pads ?
I’ve seen old Land Rover bonded brake shoes come apart. Riveted brake shoes on trucks seem to have an indefinite lifespan. 50 years or more in some cases.
It’s common to see New Old Stock brake pads for sale on autojumble stalls. I’ve never heard of any problems with them.

Tucker, they looked 100% genuine Goodrich to me. Sealed packet, brand new. Just unsure of the age.

doubt they can go off as Hope ones aren’t in sealed packaging and theyve always worked perfect for me

I have uncovered the mystery of why my brake pads were always crap at the start of every new ride. Took a while and some mud and grit to sort them out again. Had me right perplexed…

I store my bike in the kitchen. It’s cooking oil which evaporates when cooking, then settles leaving a microscopic layer on things. Bike right near cooker. It only takes a teeny tiny bit of oil to degrade the performance of the brakes, but organic oil is easily burnt/scraped off, fortunately.

I thought it was just because they were old Hopes….

if they were goodrich they were fake as the name is goodridge!

I thought it was just because they were old Hopes….

I was actually talking about my Hayes ones so shut up.