Carbon wheels + Rim brakes = noisy braking – normal?

This is my first venture into carbon wheels with rim brakes – pieced together a Pinarello Cadore w DA7700 over the last year and just got lightbicycle rims built up on DA hubs (drilled the front hub from 12 to 24h).
Love the ride: smooth and fast, reasonably light too at 9.6 kg (58 cm frame).

What braking sounds like: https://vocaroo.com/1jRyfPW7HeMn

Using some sort of generic brown-ish pads a bike shop gave me. Is this noise normal, do the new rims need to bed in with the pads somehow?

It’s flat where I live and don’t ride much in the wet so don’t need a lot of performance; prioritise something quieter that’s also gentle on the rims. Perhaps some pads are quieter than others?

BTW: with the 28 mm external width rims I had to grind the pads down to 6 mm thickness to work with the DA calipers, a cheese-grater did the trick – but this also means there’s no clearance to toe in the pads which some say can improve noise.

Are they carbon-specific pads? Rubber ones can be too grabby and add to the noise, not helped that many carbon rims don’t have a machined brake track. I used to run Swisstop Yellows with my carbon race wheels, but they are pricey.

I’m using Wiggle’s own-brand carbon-specific pads and they’ve been mostly fine, certainly no noise. They need a second or so to clear any rain if it’s raining really hard, otherwise fine.

They are supposedly carbon specific..but not so sure. Said dura ace on the flimsy plastic bag, but dura ace doesn’t make any brown pads? Maybe just some sort of generic asian cheapo.

What’s good and def silent? I read people like Shimano R55C4 and Swissstop Black Prince. Price isn’t so important as I don’t go through pads that fast.

I’ve got some Zipp 303 rim brake wheels. They have a very grooved braking surface which means they stop instantly but a fair bit of noise.

i actually don’t mind the noise

I have Light Bicycle carbon rims with the grooved graphene brake surfaces. They make quite a loud noise under braking but I think it sounds fantastic!

Yellow swissstop on farsports rims here. Mostly quiet unless under heavy braking. Pads are soft and didn’t survive a trip to the Alps. I’m going to have to find something different cos they’re too expensive now.

That’s what mine sound like, Fulcrums with grooved AC3. The sound is good, it means you’re generating friction – something the later brake tracks are better at. Certainly much better than early carbon clinchers where the pad was acting more on the resin giving some fairly shoddy stopping power.

Cool bike by the way…

Surprised you got the brakes to work at all on a 28mm external rim, I have the same callipers and it’s maxed out on pad adjustment on just under 25mm external without reducing the pad.

What’s the tyre clearance like on the stays? must be toooight as a tiger.

Surprised you got the brakes to work at all on a 28mm external rim, I have the same callipers and it’s maxed out on pad adjustment on just under 25mm external without reducing the pad.

What’s the tyre clearance like on the stays? must be toooight as a tiger.

What tyre clearance? I had to straighten the brake arms to run parallel to the rim and shave the pads down to 5.8 mm (most pads have approx 7 mm of brake track protruding from the pad holder). I guess I could gain a bit more room by bending the arms out, but the angle of attack would get worse. Not a big problem for me as I don’t brake that much.

In retrospect I would have gone with narrower rims, 25 or 26 mm, but on the upside the width is perfect for my 26 mm tires.

I wouldn’t bend the calliper arms, they’re aluminium – you don’t want to weaken them. I was wondering on the gap at the chain stays, as most frames of that era were designed around skinny 19c tyres, would’ve thought it must be very close to rubbing the frame with a modern tyre – curious as thinking of building up something similar as a winter bike but would want to run 25’s ideally.

I use Swissstop Black Prince, Reynolds Blue and Wiggle’s own brand blue. Can’t tell the difference in braking between them and they all sound like £5 notes being scraped off the braking surfaces…

Several different wheelsets/bikes/brake types so, IME, noise is normal and buy the Wiggle Blues for least ££`s.

I wouldn’t bend the calliper arms, they’re aluminium – you don’t want to weaken them. I was wondering on the gap at the chain stays, as most frames of that era were designed around skinny 19c tyres, would’ve thought it must be very close to rubbing the frame with a modern tyre – curious as thinking of building up something similar as a winter bike but would want to run 25’s ideally.

Tyre clearance is abundant, so I guess it depends on the frame!

I use Swissstop Black Prince, Reynolds Blue and Wiggle’s own brand blue. Can’t tell the difference in braking between them and they all sound like £5 notes being scraped off the braking surfaces…

What about Zipp cork? Seems like the quietest option

Ordered a pair of zipp cork-something pads for 25 gbp, see how they compare.