I’m trying to work out the pads I need for shimano road bike brakes without going down and taking them out of the calipers. We’ve got one bike with the RS685 and one with 785 (one is the 105 level, the other the ‘non-series’ ultegra).

Do they both take the same pads and are they the same as any of the mtb brakes (and of course if so which)?

Dunno, but I’ve taken to using Swissstop pads once the OEM ones have worn out.

I think it depends on the caliper rather than the levers.

For post-mount calipers you need something like https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-disc-brake-pads-ice-tec-j02a-resin-437813/wg_id-12408 . I think any Shimano “J” pad will do. I think these are branded as MTB pads rather than road.

For flat-mount I think you need something like https://www.bike-discount.de/en/buy/shimano-disc-brake-pads-ice-tec-l02a-resin-541316/wg_id-12408 . I think any Shimano “L” pads will do, but I don’t have these and thus may be wrong.

RS685 is the ‘non-series’ ultegra lever. RS785 is the post mount caliper they came with.

Easiest way to find out which pads you need is to take the product code from the caliper, pop it into si.shimano.com and click on the exploded view for a full list of part numbers.

For RS785 calipers I use the G02a resin pads. I’m not sure the expense of the finned pads is worth it for general use. They do wear out faster than the metallic ones, but they’re much less harsh on wearing the rotors.

If you’re doing alpine descents on 140mm rotors YMMV.

RS685 is the ‘non-series’ ultegra lever. RS785 is the post mount caliper they came with.

Ah – Ok. My bike has the RS785 caliper. Katies has BR-RS505 calipers.

Do they take the same pads? Do they take the same pads as, say, XT M8000 (which would be handy for carrying fewer spares and mean can use UberBike pads. I’m sure I read somewhere that the caliper was just an mtb one.

Do they take the same pads?

No