Brake block wear

Chris Johns said the following on 22/09/2006 12:05:

Quoted message said:

Hiya

My brake blocks seems to be wearing rather quickly - how long should they
last?

Perhaps I should be stopping less? :P

How far do you ride in a month?

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd said:

Quoted message said:

My brake blocks seems to be wearing rather quickly - how long should they
last?
Perhaps I should be stopping less? :P

Quoted message said:

How far do you ride in a month?

My cycle computer tells me just over 5 miles a day for my commute. I'd say
I do that on average 4 days a week (the other days I'll get the bus). I
don't tend to cycle much other than that at the moment.

Cheers

Chris
--
Chris Johns

Chris Johns said the following on 22/09/2006 13:29:

Quoted message said:

My cycle computer tells me just over 5 miles a day for my commute. I'd say
I do that on average 4 days a week (the other days I'll get the bus). I
don't tend to cycle much other than that at the moment.

OK then - how quick is quick? I would say that for that sort of mileage
your blocks should last at least a couple of years, depending on type of
route (if you regularly go down a 1:3 hill, they won't last as long!!!)

If they are wearing down much faster, you are doing more stopping than
going, which you need to change :-)

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd said:

Chris Johns said the following on 22/09/2006 13:29:

Quoted message said:

My cycle computer tells me just over 5 miles a day for my commute. I'd
say
I do that on average 4 days a week (the other days I'll get the bus). I
don't tend to cycle much other than that at the moment.

OK then - how quick is quick? I would say that for that sort of mileage
your blocks should last at least a couple of years, depending on type of
route (if you regularly go down a 1:3 hill, they won't last as long!!!)

If they are wearing down much faster, you are doing more stopping than
going, which you need to change :-)

My experience, on a similar commute, is that a few months is more
likely. This is with v-brakes and in city traffic which involves
frequent braking. Wet weather seems to accelerate the wear rate.

Dave said the following on 22/09/2006 14:45:

Quoted message said:

My experience, on a similar commute, is that a few months is more
likely. This is with v-brakes and in city traffic which involves
frequent braking. Wet weather seems to accelerate the wear rate.

I must either not use my brakes, or I have good blocks! My commute is
about 5 miles for the round trip, 5 days a week (I usually need to drive
in on the 6th for various reasons). I last changed the blocks a couple
of years ago, and they are coming up for renewal again. No city
traffic, but lots of cycle-path type stops. Oh, and it's a seaside
town, so everything seems permanently gritty!

--
Paul Boyd
http://www.paul-boyd.co.uk/

Paul Boyd said:

I must either not use my brakes, or I have good blocks! My commute is
about 5 miles for the round trip, 5 days a week (I usually need to drive
in on the 6th for various reasons). I last changed the blocks a couple
of years ago, and they are coming up for renewal again.

I've done about 3500 city commuting miles since this time last year and
I've replaced the front blocks once and the back ones twice. The first
set of blocks that came with the bike wore down after about 3 months,
but the current lot are much better. I think they're called Aztec and
they come with removable rubber bits rather than replacing the whole
thing. OTOH the rims are developing a rather worrying trench of wear
so maybe the tougher blocks are going to result in a much greater
expense?

Dave said:

Paul Boyd wrote:

Quoted message said:

My experience, on a similar commute, is that a few months is more
likely. This is with v-brakes and in city traffic which involves
frequent braking. Wet weather seems to accelerate the wear rate.

This would seem to be about what I'm getting. It's a route that involves a
few downhill-to-a-stop and is across a city (York) so has some fairly
frequent braking.

I also tend to cycle to "get a move on", which combined with my lardyness
probably gives the brakes a hard time!

Cheers

Chris
--
Chris Johns