I've been cycling to work since April. It's about 7 miles (between Aldershot and Guildford if you're interested) and about 5 miles of the route is off-road.
I just started cycling again after a break in October. Last week my break pads completly wore out. I changed them but this morning I had to adjust my breaks again because the new pads have worn out so much. At this rate I'll get through two pairs of break pads every fortnight which will be very expensive. I'm guessing the break pads are wearing out because of the change in weather since I started cycling again. Does anyone have an alternative to buying new break pads all the time?
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I've been cycling to work since April. It's about 7 miles (between Aldershot and Guildford if you're interested) and about 5 miles of the route is off-road.
What sort of off road? Nice gravel track, muddy gloopy horror, or something in between?
Does anyone have an alternative to buying new break pads all the time?
1. Change brand 2. Do less braking 3. Keep them clean of fine abrasive grit and little bits of aluminium from the rims
(1) is the most important one - some brands are extremely soft compound. Harder ones may be less efficient and wear rims more, but you need to strike a compromise, and fortnightly brake pad replacement is too much.
I agree with Ian, buy some tougher pads like Kool Stop Salmon. How worn are your rims? If your rims are grooved they'll trap more winter sloop and file away your brake pads. It might be time for new rims too. I've gone through a set of pads in a weekend in [censored] weather in Scotland which is one of the reasons I went disk.
I've been cycling to work since April. It's about 7 miles (between Aldershot and Guildford if you're interested) and about 5 miles of the route is off-road.
I just started cycling again after a break in October. Last week my break pads completly wore out. I changed them but this morning I had to adjust my breaks again because the new pads have worn out so much. At this rate I'll get through two pairs of break pads every fortnight which will be very expensive. I'm guessing the break pads are wearing out because of the change in weather since I started cycling again. Does anyone have an alternative to buying new break pads all the time?
Are these disc brakes or rim brakes ?
Resin based disc brake pads are notorious for wearing quickly in wet/muddy conditions. You are better off with sintered pads in those sorts of conditions.
Rim brake pads should not wear that quickly (if they do you are probably wearing out your rims as well, which can lead to a catastrophic failure - a taco'd rim)
Resin based disc brake pads are notorious for wearing quickly in wet/muddy conditions. You are better off with sintered pads in those sorts of conditions.
I use Fibrax cartridge-type brake shoes [1] with replaceable pads for off-road use; these come in black and red varieties with slight differences in stopping characteristics between the two, but the lifetime of both is more than acceptable.
David Belcher
[1] Intended for V-brakes using a peg-type mount, but equally suited to cantilevers too.