My son's favorite bike, a yard-sale 1973 step-through Raleigh Sport 3-speed, is chewing through brake pads at a rate I've never seen in my nearly 40 years of cycling. The wheels are not the best I've ever seen, being chrome jobbies that are not very true (spoke nipples are fairly rounded -- ideas welcome here), with a few kinks and bumps in them. The chrome plating is worn off here and there in a speckled fashion, but it's not like they feel like sandpaper or anything. No visible rust. Yet he is fairly grinding down the new salmon Kool Stops at an alarming rate. He's not even a very aggressive rider. I'm scratching my head over this one.
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Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
ride and press the brakes on going downhill if pawsible-feel if the brakes "pump" in your grip-indicating an uneven surface try belt dressing from discount auto-brake prep in tech archives
My son's favorite bike, a yard-sale 1973 step-through Raleigh Sport 3-speed, is chewing through brake pads at a rate I've never seen in my nearly 40 years of cycling. The wheels are not the best I've ever seen, being chrome jobbies that are not very true (spoke nipples are fairly rounded -- ideas welcome here), with a few kinks and bumps in them. The chrome plating is worn off here and there in a speckled fashion, but it's not like they feel like sandpaper or anything. No visible rust. Yet he is fairly grinding down the new salmon Kool Stops at an alarming rate. He's not even a very aggressive rider. I'm scratching my head over this one.
Oh, please build him some wheels with alu rims. Steel rims are absolutely hopeless for braking in the rain - I'm talking up to 10 times the stopping distance.
Yup, that's what we got and that's where we bought them!
Quoted message said:
If you run your finger around the rim braking surface, is there a sharp or abrasive feel?
No -- that's the puzzle. I'm bright enough to deduce that a rim that feels like sandpaper might somehow be responsible for the excitingly rapid reduction of the pad material. And I adjusted the pads myself . . .. not that I'm any kind of bicycling mechanical genius, but I've never had pads on any of my bikes wear like this, or even come close.
Oh well, science and rational thought tell me that the material is being abraded off by something, and the most likely something is the rim, so either my fingertips are insensitive to brake-pad-removing roughness, or there is some magic going on. Which takes me back to the first sentence of this paragraph. --
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
Uh . . . groups.google.com found three "brake pad treatment 2" posts. Can any kind soul translate them into standard English? I have no idea what the writers were going on about; if there is anything specific to reducing bicycle brake pad wear in those threads I'll be darned if I can find it.
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Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
yeah-belt dressing-allow to dry completely-more or less becomes the friction layer-or you may think of the belt dressing this way thus brake pad wear and rim surface wear undergoes a significant reduction with brake prep allow to dry-avoid the sand pit when damp or when newly applied-unless your in a comp situation: belt dressing plus sand will get the pipe to SOD! shall we assume you have the brain of a squirrel? is this herditary or pathological?
If you run your finger around the rim braking surface, is there a sharp or abrasive feel?
No -- that's the puzzle. I'm bright enough to deduce that a rim that feels like sandpaper might somehow be responsible for the excitingly rapid reduction of the pad material. And I adjusted the pads myself . . . not that I'm any kind of bicycling mechanical genius, but I've never had pads on any of my bikes wear like this, or even come close.
Oh well, science and rational thought tell me that the material is being abraded off by something, and the most likely something is the rim, so either my fingertips are insensitive to brake-pad-removing roughness, or there is some magic going on. Which takes me back to the first sentence of this paragraph.
Perhaps the magic of heat. If these are "ceramic coated" rims, they are poor conductors of heat. The heat stays at the interface between pad and rim, because pads don't conduct heat either.
If you run your finger around the rim braking surface, is there a sharp or abrasive feel?
No -- that's the puzzle. I'm bright enough to deduce that a rim that feels like sandpaper might somehow be responsible for the excitingly rapid reduction of the pad material. And I adjusted the pads myself . . . not that I'm any kind of bicycling mechanical genius, but I've never had pads on any of my bikes wear like this, or even come close.
Oh well, science and rational thought tell me that the material is being abraded off by something, and the most likely something is the rim, so either my fingertips are insensitive to brake-pad-removing roughness, or there is some magic going on. Which takes me back to the first sentence of this paragraph.
Perhaps the magic of heat. If these are "ceramic coated" rims, they are poor conductors of heat. The heat stays at the interface between pad and rim, because pads don't conduct heat either.
That my be true, but not in this case. As my OP said, this is a "yard-sale 1973 step-through Raleigh Sport 3-speed," with chrome (thus steel) rims.
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Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
yeah-belt dressing-allow to dry completely-more or less becomes the friction layer-or you may think of the belt dressing this way thus brake pad wear and rim surface wear undergoes a significant reduction with brake prep allow to dry-avoid the sand pit when damp or when newly applied-unless your in a comp situation: belt dressing plus sand will get the pipe to SOD! shall we assume you have the brain of a squirrel? is this herditary or pathological?
You may ALWAYS assume that I have the brain of a squirrel! --
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
My son's favorite bike, a yard-sale 1973 step-through Raleigh Sport 3-speed, is chewing through brake pads at a rate I've never seen in my nearly 40 years of cycling. The wheels are not the best I've ever seen, being chrome jobbies that are not very true (spoke nipples are fairly rounded -- ideas welcome here), with a few kinks and bumps in them. The chrome plating is worn off here and there in a speckled fashion, but it's not like they feel like sandpaper or anything. No visible rust. Yet he is fairly grinding down the new salmon Kool Stops at an alarming rate. He's not even a very aggressive rider. I'm scratching my head over this one.
Oh, please build him some wheels with alu rims. Steel rims are absolutely hopeless for braking in the rain - I'm talking up to 10 times the stopping distance.
Heh -- learned that when I was a kid. But this is Southern California. This season we've had about 1/2'' of rain.
But when I was a kid I didn't chew through brake pads the way he does. I'm impressed! --
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
If you run your finger around the rim braking surface, is there a sharp or abrasive feel?
No -- that's the puzzle. I'm bright enough to deduce that a rim that feels like sandpaper might somehow be responsible for the excitingly rapid reduction of the pad material. And I adjusted the pads myself . . . not that I'm any kind of bicycling mechanical genius, but I've never had pads on any of my bikes wear like this, or even come close.
Oh well, science and rational thought tell me that the material is being abraded off by something, and the most likely something is the rim, so either my fingertips are insensitive to brake-pad-removing roughness, or there is some magic going on. Which takes me back to the first sentence of this paragraph.
Perhaps the magic of heat. If these are "ceramic coated" rims, they are poor conductors of heat. The heat stays at the interface between pad and rim, because pads don't conduct heat either.
The OP said, "The wheels are not the best I've ever seen, being chrome jobbies..." on a "1973 step-through Raleigh Sport 3-speed." For some odd reason, I have a feeling that ceramic rims are not the problem here.
Heh -- learned that when I was a kid. But this is Southern California. This season we've had about 1/2'' of rain.
Keep the steel rims then :P
Did ya see if it was the rim seam? If it's uneven, it can act like a velo-cuisinart.
I bet! No, no rim seams. These rims are not exactly in pristine condition, having various kinks and bumpy bits, but none of them are sharp-edged. They push your finger, don't shred or scrape it.
Anyone have any hints on how to turn spoke nipples that are kinda old and fuzzy, too rounded off for a Park spoke wrench? I'd like to true the old girl's wheels a bit more than I can right no.
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Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott 71 Type 2: the Wonderbus 84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana"😉 KG6RCR
