Scienceofficer – Member
The reading I've done off the back of TJ's theory suggests that curing of a pad, and, more importantly, the transfer of pad material to the disc is something that needs to be done throughout the life of the pads/brake system under normal use.

A few microns of pad material on the disc is easily ground off in foul conditions, and if the brake isn't brought to a high enough temperature to transfer additional pad material to the disc, braking performance is diminished and the braking action changes from adhesive friction (low wear rates) to mechanical friction (high wear rates).

You therefore simultaneously lose braking power and increase pad wear rates.
That seems a reasonable explanation for something that has been puzzling me.

So basically we should run the smallest disk we can, and not the other way round. I've been running large disks for the weight of my bike & self, and suffered high pad wear in the wet. Looks like I should have been running small disks instead.

This bedding in business is a flaming nuisance though. 🙂

Coming into this somewhat late, but:

"TJ, if it's just heat that cures them, why don't they run them through a kiln as part of the production process? If it's works as well as you're convinced it does, wouldn't mfrs be selling pads as "oven baked for 20x durability" or something similar?"

Hope, EBC and Carbon Lorraine all do 😉 There was a nice feature in one of the rags a while back from the Hope factory- possibly last year's Dirt 100- that showed them going in the oven. But as TJ says, it's only a part of the process.

I can understand why exposing the pads to heat might feasibly make them last longer, but why should mating/conforming them to the disc surface make them last longer?

Poppa – I don't think it does.

It looks like the crucial factor may be as explained by science officer above as well as the curing of the pad under heat and pressure