Brake pads & bleedkits for roadie/gravel SRAM?

I seem to have somehow managed a whole year out of my first set on my Ridley. It’s SRAM Apex 1×11.  I can pay nearly £40 for SRAM branded or £6 plus postage from Merlin for Clarks VX. Clarks good enough? WWSTWD?

As for a bleed kit, TotalBleedSolutions OK from ebay?

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/114009106900

Cheer m’dears as always.

Kit looks ok I think. I have bleedkit.com one and it looks the same. Just make sure you have the right one to connect to your calipers/levers. The bleeding edge port is different. Epic have similar kits too.

Pads, well you have done well on the OEM ones. I’m sure Clarkes/Uberbike/Superstar/Fibrax etc are fine too. I mostly have uberbike sintered or race matrix.

Edit- one of those would glaze on a gravel bike but not on a mountain bike…can’t remember which one though! Probably depends on how you brake though, I suspect the more binary braking on a mountain bike is better for avoiding glazing anyway.

I used the Epic Bleed kit on my SRAM Force brakes and it worked well.

I recently installed the galfer blue pads on my brakes and they made a big difference to the braking.