I have Ultegra 6800 rim brakes with whatever pads they come with as standard, and Fulcrum Racing 3 wheels. Can’t really complain about the performance, but if I wanted something better what gets a thumbs up? Heard Swiss Stop are pretty good.

Would recommend Swiss Stop. They are expensive but you get 4 pads so not quite as bad as it initially appears. Think i’m on the bxp one at the moment, the black and green ones are good too

Swiss Stop Green, stops my 100Kg bulk on Fulcrum wheels a treat.

Shimano R55C4 are fantastic in good weather with bags of stopping power

Wet weather? Too abrasive (will quickly destroy rims), switch to Swiss Stop blue – the stopping power isn’t there but they are kind on rims and work well enough in the wet

Swissstop Greens are the best I’ve found. Last well and work better than any other rim brakes in the wet.

A lot of one’s impression of brake efficiency depends on when you fit them – at the end of a long period of dry weather the braking surfaces can get quite smooth and shiny, which works with various pad compounds differently to a rougher surface that’s freshly scoured by wet gritty pads, as in winter.

swiss stop blue or green, hard to beat

+1 for Swiss Stop.

I use Swiss Stop blue, great pads and they match my bike 🙂

Going for the green pads…is it the Flash Pro pads that fit the brake blocks found on Ultegra 6800?

These threads come up every month and I still cant tell difference between the expensive pads, shimano OB and Wiggle Lifeline a couple of quid for four.

They all work fine.

Swiss stop green for me, almost as good as discs.

Koolstop salmon.

I’ve never noticed the difference in the dry but in the wet it is stand out with the Koolstop.

Never tried swiss stop.

Cleaning your rims and pads is also a good shout. I use an enamel rubber on my rims once in a while but make sure they get a wipe down. Pads get a bit of a scrub and a check over (for debris) when i remove wheels.

I tend to use the Dura-Ace pads, work well for me.

Fibrax red are awesomely powerful in all conditions, soft as $h!te mind so don’t expect them to last, but by God they stop you.

I just replaced worn out avid with ultegra on my cross bike. Ultegra/Dura Ace pads are very good. Swiss stop are too, and coloured. I use their carbon blocks as well.

Koolstop or swissstop – I found the latter slightly kinder to rims but less hard-wearing (obviously that’s where the trade off is!) but there can’t be much in it, just keep them free of alu ‘burrs’ that embed themselves with regular checks, the slightest hint of noise from them might mean a check over needed – stuff like this is vital to ensure longevity of factory rims that are a ballache or plain impossible to replace.

Shimano do 2 compounds, C3 and C4, with I think C3 usually being OE fit and C4 offering more bike/power.

Wiggle Lifeline a couple of quid for four

try taking them down a steep hill. I foolishly saved a few quid by buying and fitting some, and then went to the Alps/Dolomites. They are dangerously poor – little braking force, so you pull the lever further and they just squash with no increase in braking. Persisted with them for a day or 2; Munqe Chick who is a less confident descender than me was topping out a full 10mph quicker on long downhills, then popped into the first bike shop we came across and bought Shimano C4s.

I use Shimano on alloy, Swiss Stop on carbon.

Not tried many pads as one benefit of weighing nothing is low pad wear. Stock ultegra pads are really good. Swissstop original black are as good in the dry, marginally better in the wet, but not so much better as to be worth getting excited about

try taking them down a steep hill.

Seemed OK the last few years I’ve been going up down Galibier, Glandon, ADH, various other bits in the Alps and back here in Yorkshire, Wales etc.

Sounds like you had them poorly set up or poorly maintained.

Sounds like you had them poorly set up or poorly maintained.

brand new pads in Ultegra with new (Ultegra) cables on new Ultegra alloy rims (I normally ride carbon but went alloy for the mountains due to horror stories of overheating, and for more reliable braking if it rained). Obviously a YMMV or I got a crap batch but I’m only 65kgs so neither heavy nor gorilla-strong, but I could pull the lever to bite point, then the same distance again and get no more braking effect and I could feel the blocks squashing/compressing. Every other pad or brake set up I’ve used would have locked the wheel up before then – including the Shimano pads that immediately replaced them on the same set up. I’m struggling to think of a worse bike related purchase to be honest and it was a lesson in buy cheap buy twice.