Tag: pad

August 1st – A mechanical mystery. Three month old Shimano hydraulic brake pads, which suddenly lost grip and appeared to be glazed or contaminated. The pads are the sintered metal type and are genuine manufacturer parts.

Sometimes, long periods of braking can ‘glaze’ pads. causing them to become highly polished and shiny, meaning they don’t work well. The common treatment for this is to file the surface of the pad and pop them back in. 

These I have degreased, cleaned, filed and even surface ground, but whatever I do they quickly glaze again. New pads of the same type were just fine.

Anyone got any idea what’s going on here? I’m wondering if overheating has caused the pad material to harden…

June 27th – One of the most notable changes with the cleaning up of the local canals since my childhood has been the explosion in water lilies and other water flowers that were unimaginable on the waterways of 40 years ago. Where once the water was polluted, filthy and lifeless soup, it’s now clear, limpid and at this time of year, covered in the pinks, ivories and yellows of various lilies and flag irises. 

These flowers were near Clayhanger Bridge.

March 11th – A nasty graunching from the rear brake on the way home was severe enough to have me check it out as soon as I got home. Much to my shock, I found the stock, soft resin-organic brake pads in my rear calliper were just a bit worn.

Ahem.

The new sintered metal ones are at the rear, the ones I took out in front. That’s bad. Should have spotted it sooner – luckily I don’t seem to have damaged the disc.

Never take your eyes of those essential maintenance tasks, people!

April 8th – Heres a cycling one for the tech heads. Sorry, but it may save some folk hassle.

Disc brake pads. Don’t skimp on them, it’s just not worth it.Two of my bikes have Avid BB7  units fitted. One bike has original factory-fitted Avid brand pads, and the other, which is older, after the originals wore out had some Kool Stop ones, which were good at first but glazed over, reducing the stopping performance. I replaced those with some cheap ones from Decathlon as I was passing at the time and it was easy. They were awful. I was noticing that the Avid pads on the newer bike were far better than the others. Eventually, after cleaning and roughening discs, adjustments and degreasing, I gave up, and ordered some original Avid sintered metal pads. Performance restored.
The moral of all this is that your brakes are your life. Don’t waste time with cheap shit.