Winter Brake Blocks

[The fat commuter]

Hi all

Stupid question this but, are there such things as brake blocks specially designed for use in the winter?

I am very heavy on my brakes. I fitted the current ones just under a month and 250 miles ago on the rear of the bike. They are already almost down to the wear indicator. I've got some of these fitted:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/clar ... -prod55821

and my rims are Sputnik rims as in this wheel:
http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... b0s176p349

As I mentioned, I am heavy on brakes. This is mainly because I am heavy, but also because of my commute into work. Just over 2.5 miles but all downhill and in fairly heavy traffic - so the rear brake is on for a lot of that ride.

I did a bit of a maintenance clean of the bike yesterday. Cleaned and lubed the chain. Took the brake blocks off and dug out the bits of metal. Was a bit of a faff though, but I suppose that I should be doing this more often to preserve the life of my rims. This is one of the blocks before digging the bits out:


So, couple of questions.

Are there any brake blocks that aren't as prone to getting metal embedded in them in the winter?
Is there an easy way of getting the metal out of the blocks - I removed mine from the bike.

Many thanks in advance

[[XAP]Bob]

I have to wonder whether hub brakes might be a better option!

I don't really "do" rim brakes (I have one bike with them on, but haven't done enough riding on that to have tried different approaches)

[jezer]

I think it will always be a problem with conventional brakes. For this winter I bought a road bike with discs. It has proved to be the solution, no matter what the conditions they work perfectly. Totally recommended!

[mig]

do you habitually clean the rims and blocks? mucky winter roads cause far more abrasion between rim and pad and shorten their lives significantly. so no 'winter' blocks that i know of merely a better cleaning regime if you can.

[The fat commuter]

do you habitually clean the rims and blocks? mucky winter roads cause far more abrasion between rim and pad and shorten their lives significantly. so no 'winter' blocks that i know of merely a better cleaning regime if you can.

Err, not really at the moment. This 'riding a bike in all weathers' is new to me. When I used to ride twenty odd years ago, it was on a road bike and I'd only go out if the sun was out and the ground was dry. My bike never got mucky.

Now I'm out in all weathers. The roads at the moment are continually wet, so so are the rims. The blocks are meant to be three different colours - but just look black. Looks like, as you say, I'm going to have to get into the habit of washing down the back wheel and blocks and digging out the swarf from the rubber on a more regular basis.

I can see me also having to go on a wheel building course so that I can put new rims on when these ones wear out, which no doubt they will.

Suppose I could move to a flatter city.

[Des49]

I am finding the Clarks brake blocks that you are using are extremely good and I have equiped most of our bikes with them except the road racing bikes.

Work well in the wet and dry, last well and do not accumulate bits of aluminum for me. Have even done a couple of gruesomely wet and muddy MTB races recently with cantilever brakes and these Clarks pads, they have plenty of life left in them, I know the Shimano versions may not have even lasted one race.

They are also a fair bit thicker than the normal Shimano v-brake blocks which wear out extremely fast. There is an extreme weather Shimano block which seems to work better and lasts a bit longer but not long enough and I will not be using these again either. I have one bike currently on Shimano blocks with a front Mavic X719 rim and that is picking up metal on the blocks to such an extent that I will change them over very soon on the next bike clean. Though those Mavic rims do seem soft and prone to early wear.

Keeping your bike clean and scrubbing the brake tracks and blocks helps to prolong the life of the rim and blocks greatly, but daily use in the wet on mucky roads for commuting means that the bike probably doesn't get a clean until each weekend. In these conditions I could easily go through brake blocks very quickly and rear rims may only last a year.

So wish I had disk brakes for these conditions!

[mercalia]

Hi all

Stupid question this but, are there such things as brake blocks specially designed for use in the winter?

I am very heavy on my brakes. I fitted the current ones just under a month and 250 miles ago on the rear of the bike. They are already almost down to the wear indicator. I've got some of these fitted:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/clar ... -prod55821

and my rims are Sputnik rims as in this wheel:
http://www.spacycles.co.uk/products.php ... b0s176p349

As I mentioned, I am heavy on brakes. This is mainly because I am heavy, but also because of my commute into work. Just over 2.5 miles but all downhill and in fairly heavy traffic - so the rear brake is on for a lot of that ride.

I did a bit of a maintenance clean of the bike yesterday. Cleaned and lubed the chain. Took the brake blocks off and dug out the bits of metal. Was a bit of a faff though, but I suppose that I should be doing this more often to preserve the life of my rims. This is one of the blocks before digging the bits out:


So, couple of questions.

Are there any brake blocks that aren't as prone to getting metal embedded in them in the winter?
Is there an easy way of getting the metal out of the blocks - I removed mine from the bike.

Many thanks in advance

if those were my brake blocks I would be freaking out. seems like u need disc brakes? how long do your rims last?

or u need some cheap reliable junk wheels for winter

[jamesbradbury]

Some very high mileage types recommend swissstop green for all-year durability.

I've had mine only a few months, but I'm happy so far. Dry stopping is probably less than some, but they work better than most in the wet.

[pedalsheep]

Some very high mileage types recommend swissstop green for all-year durability.

I certainly like them. They work well in wet or dry and last ages. Although they seem expensive they last far longer than cheaper ones I've tried and so actually cost less in the long term. I always clean my bike after every ride which also makes a big difference.

[mjr]

Some very high mileage types recommend swissstop green for all-year durability.

Durability of the blocks or the rims? It's quite easy to optimise the wrong thing on rim brakes and have harder blocks last longer by wearing the rims faster.

I've little useful info yet because after 5 years, I'm still working through different blocks trying to find something that works as well on alloy as Fibrax Raincheaters did on steel. So far among the basic pads: Aztec seemed poor, with relatively hard and relatively poor braking; Ashima seemed OK; Lifeline seem surprisingly good in the wet but I suspect from the slightly more progressive feel of the brakes that they may wear quickly but they've only been on a short while and time will tell. The even newer pair on someone else's bike got praise for helping them stop quickly enough when a dangerous driver nearly sideswiped them last night, though!

[scoot]

Durability of the blocks or the rims? It's quite easy to optimise the wrong thing on rim brakes and have harder blocks last longer by wearing the rims faster.

I was gonna say that

Blocks are untimately more replaceable than rims.

You mentioned building your own rims: I saw a thread on hear about that yesterday - looks interesting.

Paul

[s1965c]

Heavy bloke, 2.5 miles in heavy traffic mostly downhill - that's going to be a tall order for any type of brake. I'm similarly heavy, and live in a hilly part of Devon.

I've been getting good mileage out of Discobrakes OBE pads. They cost next to nothing (£8 for four pairs delivered) and last better / are kinder to rims / stop better than anything else I've tried. I'm getting three times the life of the original Shimano pads and no longer have to endure the grinding noises whenever I use the brakes in the wet.

[Bicycler]

I can't help about the pads but you can do your best to reduce pad and rim wear by minimising time spent on the brakes if possible. Don't drag the brakes all the way down the hill if you can help it. Try to use the brakes to slow you down when you need it, not to maintain a constant speed.

[Redvee]

I'm running SwissStop Greens on m,y bike and the rears are lasting me 4 months on the bike I use every day for work in all weathers. Fronts are longer lasting which was the complete opposite to the wear rate on my MTB with rim brakes, 3 fronts to one rear set of blocks. Must use the front brake more.
I buy the pads from a French Ebayer for £18 for 8/4pairs without any packaging etc so doesn't work out too expensive.

[Vantage]

I used a set of similar Clarkes triple compound blocks in May 2013 and they lasted till May this year and still had a couple thousand miles left in them. While they did a great job of stopping the bike, they made an awful grinding kinda sound after a few months. This was even when they were clean. Googling the blocks brought up reviews that they chewed through rims quite quickly and as I was due to get a new set of wheels, they were binned and I went back to the cheapo Jagwire pads I'd used previously.
The current pads have been on since May this year and are about half worn. They're quieter and stop faster imo, but they don't bite immediately in wet conditions. At £2-3 a pair, these are cheaper to replace than a new rim.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B001 ... detailpage