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.
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!!
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......
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.
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
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.
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.
clearly you!GW who's the dick now?
What are you so scared of that you're wearing out braking surfaces on rims?
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)
GW
[i]"clearly you!
What are you so scared of that you're wearing out braking surfaces on rims?"[/i]
you were clearly a fair weather rider!!
amedias - i agree, my old 98/99 Hope mini pads lasted for 5 years
GW has been known to forget that not everyone is awesome.
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)
[url= http://farm8.staticflickr.com/7006/6676474515_fd724df242_z.jp g" target="_blank">
Am I the only one who thinks the necessity to do all this faffing points to poor construction and design of the disk brakes?
When? 😕you were clearly a fair weather rider!!
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.
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).
you may be right but have you got any better ideas?epicyclo - MemberAm 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 😉
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.
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
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!! 😀
Wunundred! 😀
A set of pads every two laps?! 😆
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
GW - Member
...Epi - again, in my mind it's a problem not needing any solution
It'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 🙂
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).
skateboarding champion, top mechanic and never need to brake hero
What does GW stand for?? 😀
my initials you BJ?
nah, strangely not, its JC
GW why dont you crawl back under your bridge?
You dont know ANYONE who has worn out a rim through, where they ride or how they ride.
But dont let any actual evidence from those who have experienced it get in the way of your ridiculous macho bullshit.
Me i used to ride several times a week in central scotland throughout the year. Ask anyone else from the GMBC and im sure they'll back me up on rim wear.
ha ha... 😆 Big yinn I rode with GMBC for years, Say Hi to them 😉
and yes, I saw plenty GMBC members wear out "their" rims, needlessly!
Your real name then? I may know you........
Haven't seen any of them for 10 years.
Gary. left Glasgow 1999ish (still bump into the odd GMBCer once in a while)
et toi?
I wore out a new rim on my first 'Puffer.
Before the questioning of my manhood starts, in my defence I must point out that I had a 0.5 watt glow-worm as a light so did a lot of needless panic braking and dragging trying to keep up with the folk lighting up the forest with their 20 lumen searchlights...
only time i heated up pads with a blowtorch the friction material fell off the backing plate an hour later half way down a blooming steep descent! 😯
no excuse for a local 8)
Paul, left glasgow in '96.
BBB unveil DiscStop padBBB say their new DiscStop brake pads are ready to go out of the box, with no bedding-in needed. There's a choice of organic (£9.95) or sintered compounds (£12.95), and they're compatible with almost every braking system on the planet. UK distribution is via Windwave
from BikeRadar
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm