What brake pads for the Alps? Sintered or Organic?

Off to Verbier in August and was wondering what spare pads to take with me? Sintered or Organic? I’m using the older style XTs with 203/180mm rotors if that makes any difference.

Cheers
Dave

I used sintered in Mono M4’s and they were fine.

Superstar do Kevlar which is hard as sintered, stoppy as organic.

Not a troll – I ordered 4 sets last Thursday night, turned up saturday.

Alps – Sintered! – used a set of organic pads coming off Skiddaw in the lakes. They were part worn but the heat just killed them.

I thought sintered had sinters of metal in them, to keep the heat in the pad and therefore designed for colder climes such as uk.

In the heat the sintered will get hotter no? vis a vis the organic ones for the alps?

Sintered work better at high temps as they have a higher top temp at which they continue to work. They will allow more heat into the brake system tho as they transfer heat into the calliper more easily than organic.

Strange comments above, as sintered was invented to prevent wear associated with motorbike use.

All racers use organic/carbon/kevlar based pads as they perform better and cope better with the heat.

Id go for a good organic myself, as sintereds just boil your brakes up

Verbier is a brake draggers paradise and if your a big lad, small rotors or your brakes arent in great condition your oil may well boil. Seems to be hit and miss and not always down to the type of brake, can be pretty random. Organic dont have the same initial bite but dont heat up quite as much as sintered. Take sintered anyway incase you get a wet day.

Make sure all your hose etc bolts are tight and you have nicely bled brakes.

What date you going?

Sintered. Never let me down from all my trips.

Organics for Verbier.

As Scruff said they’re propper brake dragging trails round there.

I’ll be there again in two weeks time, I can’t wait.

taking the Jones? 😛

I think you know the answer to that one mate. 8)

I need all the help I can get round there.

Off on the 15th August for a week.

Can’t wait for it!

Cheers for the comments guys – still seems a bit of both so I may order a few pairs of each.

A wise move!

What make you going to go for?

Probably worth bleeding fresh fluid through too, contaminated fluid boils at much lower temp’s and you’ll be generating a fair bit of heat I would imagine.

i had sintered in m4’s and they held up pretty well to the stupid amounts of heat i produced.

Toying with the idea of something from Superstar believe it or not. Hearing more good stories than bad stories these days so I’m guessing “that bad batch” that lasted ages seems to really have disappeared (literally) now…

So for the sake of saving yourself a fiver, you’re going to take a punt on the chance of brake failure on an alpine descent ❓ 😯

I’m taking EBC reds to the mega, won’t go near sintered out there, my mate had his brakes go completely using sintered with hayes 9s

Toying with the idea

😐

Interesting – no clear conclusion to this. Been wondering about the same question for our trip to the ppds.

For the record, I’ve been running superstar sintered for ages without a problem, as have many people I ride with.

Have never been to the Alps, but my understanding of pads is that sintered pads have metal particles in so they give more friction at lower temperatures than organic which only work properly at higher temperatures. Also, the metal particles transfer more heat to the brake fluid than organic. Therefore logically, sintered for colder conditions or shorter hills and organic for hot climates or big downhills like the Alps?

Yes, apart form when it rains in the Alps, then you’re royally fkd.

Superstar now do Kevlar – halfway house apparently

I find with the resin pads although they supposedly run cooler once you exceed their operating temperature range the pads glaze over and will fade considerably. The sintered or metallic pad will endure higher temperatures before it starts to fade. It is entirely subjective and you have to take into account rider weight, style, terrain etc. when making your choice.

I run sintered pads in the Alps with Dot 5.1 break fluid.

http://www.pinkbike.com/news/brake-pad-information-2009.html

I run either depending on the weather, if it rains then on with the sintered, if not then organic, same as the UK. Everytime I’ve gone to the Alps I’ve bled and replaced the fluid in my brakes though, which to my mind makes more of a difference to brake performance than pads…

Take all 3 (sintered, organic and SS Kevlar) and come back and write us a report!

send it in to STW and if its good enough they might pop it in.

if youve got good things to say about Kevlar, im sure superstar will appreciate an external opinion to put in thier literature!

sorted.
get it done.

And the review might be featured on the front page of the website in 2 years time.

I use Hayes original sintered pads out here day in, day out (running Hayes 9’s with 8″ rotors).

I get about 3 weeks out of a set of pads, no hassles with over-heating.