Road bike brake pads that *work* in wet weather

[trailgumby]

Ultegra 6700 brakes Koolstop Salmon pads and Pro-Lite Bracciano wheelset. Yes, I'm getting the water off, not making much difference.

Braking was OK when the original concentric milling was still there, but that has since worn off and the brake track surface is now flat and parallel. Still plenty of material left and no high spots, so braking is very smooth. There's just not much of it in the wet.

[bychosis]

Given the energetic defence of the rim brake for racing by some forum members in the disc brake thread, I figured they must be not unhappy with their wet weather performance, and maybe therefore I am be doing something wrong... but... it appears not.

Some of those more energetic defenders of the rim brake probably don't even ride in the wet lest their bike melt/get dirty.

Me, I'm just using the 'whatevers' that are on my old road bike and they don't work real well in the wet. My commute doesn't require any serious braking and I haven't had a 'surprise' worthy of upgrading yet. If it's horrible wet in advance I'll pick a different bike (or hide indoors/in a smokebox)

(Commented in this thread to keep it bookmarked for later )

[AlMac]

Ultegra 6700 brakes Koolstop Salmon pads and Pro-Lite Bracciano wheelset. Yes, I'm getting the water off, not making much difference.

Try Shimano pads.

[jpgibson]

i found shimano pads ate my rims. i did a front disc conversion on my Lynskey for about $600( fork, wheel, brakes etc). i dont think you can compare the two esp in the wet.
I know its a lot of dosh, but i like to be able to stop!

[silentbutdeadly]

I'm using Swissstop green on the CX bike. See's naff all rain because it never rains here but the dust makes rim brakes sketchy and these have coped nicely...you never know!

[rangersac]

Check your brake clearance as this makes a surprising amount of difference. I use the Koolstop multi compound pads and they work pretty decently on the long arm Tektros that I have on my all weather commuter, and these aren't the greatest of brakes to begin with. The only other recommendation I have that might work depending on the levers you are using, is to change to Campy calipers. I have Centaur Skeleton calipers on my roadie and they smash all of the Shimano x700 and x600 series calipers I've tried out of sight (I'm yet to use any of the x800 series). The downside to doing this though is you'll lose the quick release function when it comes to wheel changing time.

[ldrcycles]

I've always been baffled by people having this wet weather braking trouble, the only time i've encountered it was on ye olde chromed steel rims with bottom end Weinmann sidepulls. I've used Tektro and Shimano RX100 and 105 (20yr old, not modern) calipers with just ordinary BBB pads on Aksiums, R500s and RS80s and have never once had an issue with reduced braking in the wet. Grip is another matter of course .

[QuangVuong]

Anyone remember mavis ceramic coated rims from the 90's? They certainly aided in wet weather stopping. I guess they also aided in pad sales.

You mean these ones? They are good until you chip the surface(ie from a metal tyre lever), and it'll all start falling off.


I haven't been caught in the rain on this bike, so I don't know how braking is in the wet. I don't even know what pads are on it(probably what's been there for the past 19 years).

Were there specific pads for these rims?

[zero]

Yeah, ultimately I'll go to discs for the next road bike, but that may be a ways off. I get the reasons for their superiority - I've been using them for the last 10 years off road and have been taking the p*ss out of the caliper brake diehards in the UCI disc brake thread.

There's nothing that really catches my attention at the moment new bike-wise, and I really do enjoy my CAAD9. It's fun and flickable, the geometry is very comfortable, and it's not at all harsh even on some nasty pavement. It's just so annoying that the brakes are so utterly dire - dare I say unsafe - in traffic when it's wet.

I went from 10 years on a disc braked bike to a road bike and didn't have these issues. I have stopped from 60 or so many times on Victoria road at the white bay intersection, and I always get unlucky with the lights at the bottom of taverners hill on Parramatta rd too - and have done both on wet days many times. The change from the bontrager rim to a fulcrum rim made no difference.

Given the energetic defence of the rim brake for racing by some forum members in the disc brake thread, I figured they must be not unhappy with their wet weather performance, and maybe therefore I am be doing something wrong... but... it appears not.

Would Ultegra or DA pads be an improvement? I've found the Shimano OEM pads to be superior on their high end hydraulic disc brakes. What about their road caliper pads?

I've had the ultegra pads that go into the dura ace style holders and they are fine.
The tiagra pads that are bonded onto the holder and don't have replaceable rubber (ie you get new bolts and stuff with the pads, like tektro pads), are very wooden in feel.

As far as shimano pads eating rims go, its aluminum in the pads that eats rims, and if you clean them whenever they start making scraping sounds, the rim won't wear quickly.

[Thoglette]

I've always been baffled by people having this wet weather braking trouble,

Ditto, with the caveat that dirty pads on oily rims don't work either. Especially if the pad material has "gone off" from sitting in the sun (or even just the shed, if you leave it long enough)

I suspect that may be the rootof the problem the I-never-get-caught-in-the-rain brigade are having.

Just as the roads are slippery the first day we have a bit of rain after a long dry spell, rims and brake pads that haven't seen water for a while are likely to be oily and dusty. And therefore slippery the first time they get damp.

[djw47]

Ultegra 6700 brakes Koolstop Salmon pads and Pro-Lite Bracciano wheelset. Yes, I'm getting the water off, not making much difference.

Try Shimano pads.

I tried Shimano pads once. Brand new pads, one ride in the hills in the wet and they were practically gone, I suspect they were made of some kind of cheese. I've had cheapo pads I got off ebay and koolstop salmons and both worked better than the Shimanos. The only way to get brakes to work in the wet is to go for disk brakes - they'll actually stop you and you won't file away your precious rims with the crap that the rim pads pick up in the wet.

[Howzat]

Try the lifeline alloy rim brake pads. They don't last long but they are cheap and a little bit better than the red/orange salmon pads...

These are made by Ashima, and I just bought a set of Ashima brake pads from Pushy's. If we get any more wet weather in Sydney , I'll report back on how they do.

Nice typhoon-style morning weather for the commute in, so got to test the new Lifeline/Ashima pads. Verdict... improved braking performance from the newness factor, and I'm happy with the pads in general, but they're still rim brakes. So hard braking in traffic produces that gentle, unhurried, gliding to stop and/or into the back of the bus experience that rim brakes are famous for.

[RhapsodyX]

Still plenty of material left and no high spots, so braking is very smooth. There's just not much of it in the wet.

Might be time for some new ones, they might have gone hard.

I'm running a cross bike with V-brakes on the front, I have been using V-brake MTB pads cut back with the dremel to suit the brake track on the road rims, but received my Koolstop "cross pad" carriers & inserts etc. last week. Triple compound! Unfortunately when it raining on Monday, the "gray" part of the pad picked up alloy and was chewing the rim apart, so I binned them and fitted full Salmon two days ago. It rained yesterday... much panicking about the lack of initial "bite" in the wet for the first part of the trip home, but after a lot of hard stops it worked reasonably well compared to other pads - at the point of stopping it was becoming a bit too aggressive. And at least it doesn't eat the rims! But not as good as the KoolStop Black.

[g-boaf]

My Swissstop BXP were fine breaking in the rain down Baw Baw yesterday . No oil on the road though (and no surprises)

Edit. Er... braking. Can't believe I wrote that.

Swisstop are awesome - I have them on a heavily upgraded/improved Giant TCR Advanced SL3 (very light). They are amazing how well they stop. I got these blue coloured pads as standard included items in a set of Magura RT8 TT brakes, but hadn't used them. I only used them because they were laying around and I needed a set to complete the build on that Giant.

Absolutely superb stopping - very nice surprise. The brakes are Planet X Ultralight CNC alloy, the rest is Dura Ace 9000.

Some of those more energetic defenders of the rim brake probably don't even ride in the wet lest their bike melt/get dirty

Ahem, cough... They are bikes, they are designed to be ridden. A little bit of rain won't hurt them. Just clean it off later, all good.

[trailgumby]

Thanks for your help, lads. I'm looking at the Swissstop BXP Flash Pro pads. I'm assuming the Flash designation is the latest model - is that correct?

BTW the Salmon pads currently on the bike were bought at the same time as the original set as I had no idea of their service life and didn't want to get caught short. They were still in original packaging prior to installation and had been stored in a drawer out of the light, although not in a lightproof container like I normally do to store and preserve tyres.

[g-boaf]

These are what I have:

http://www.swissstop.com/rimbrakes/flashpro/bxp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Just superb. Will buy them in future.

[RhapsodyX]

The SwissStop GHP II's were dreadful when I tried them a few years back - an 80km ride in the wet, there was more alloy than brake pad visible when looking at the braking surface!

I might try the bxp's though - do they collect any metal, or are they more like the KS Salmon? I like the Salmon, but can't stand the noise... but that isn't an issue with the dual ones.

[Storm Boy]

I'm a big fan of the KS Salmons, but I have never had any problems with noise?? They work well in the wet, have never had any issues.

This is what the rims looked like after the last (very) wet ride, with only a short hose rinse and no wiping.

[trailgumby]

^^^ What can I say but "I wish!"

Last wet ride the rear looked close to that after a spray and wipe down with the cleaning brush, but the front was coated with hard-to-shift grunge and grey sludge that needed concerted effort with a rag and ultimately disc brake cleaner.

Maybe it's to do with the roads I ride on. I do notice in the kerbside lane in the dry that the buses drop/spray a lot of stuff onto the road, especially around the corners and where they get back on the gas after the corners. It (mostly) dpesn't seem to affect traction that much, but whatever it is I wish they wouldn't.

[drubie]

If you are spending time in the bus lanes you're probably picking up a lot of diesel - slippery as hell especially combined with water. I don't think there is any brake pad / brake caliper combination that's going to defeat a light mist of diesel on your rim.

Having said that, the campy skeleton brakes are terrific things (we run some on a tandem and no problems pulling that up in the rain). However, these are country roads and we don't have to deal with the diesel everywhere.

[trailgumby]

Hello drubie - long time no hear

I was about to post that there are no diesel buses in Sydney any more, but a quick check showed that is incorrect. They're just using AdBlue to control the particulate and other emissions.

I think you've probably put your finger on what I am seeing accumulate around the corners. I came off in the wet on that stuff earlier this year.

[drubie]

I think you've probably put your finger on what I am seeing accumulate around the corners. I came off in the wet on that stuff earlier this year.

(I lurk more than post these days)

I don't think it's the tailpipe emissions, more the spillage down the side when they fill them up and possibly fuel system leaks.

The adblue stuff unfortunately doesn't do much for spillage. It seems drastic but maybe disk brakes are the only answer, not so much that they are astoundingly better brakes, but they are out of the way of the muck. Every time you roll through a puddle, the diesel is sitting on the surface of the water and it just naturally coats everything it is splashed onto.

Bummer about the slippery road accident - can't say I have come off a bike from diesel but the ground near the diesel pump at fuel stations is always treacherous, I hate to think what hitting a patch of it on a bicycle would be like.

[trailgumby]

Bummer about the slippery road accident - can't say I have come off a bike from diesel but the ground near the diesel pump at fuel stations is always treacherous, I hate to think what hitting a patch of it on a bicycle would be like.

No harm done except for a bent derailleur hanger and scuffed brifters, and a 10c piece sized graze on the elbow. The bike had been running so sweetly since being serviced by Ride In Workshop the previous weekend!

It was an off-camber roundabout at Milson's Point that I've seen coated in dark spray in the dry. Where I slipped gets a double dose as the buses turn down to Luna Park and then pass through again back up to North Sydney Station. Was being what I thought (at the time) was conservative, but both tyres let go simultaneously. A couple of peds came running to help me up, but of course the inevitable bogan wasted no time getting on the horn to suggest I should stop impeding his journey. Delightful

Now that I've got a better idea what the substance is, I might fire off some "feedback" via the transport.info website. Fuel system leaks sounds most probable, maybe venting from over-filling.

[jacks1071]

We've done a fair bit of brake pad testing recently, wet and dry on a test jig with carbon and alloy rims - this was the end result. This pad gave us the highest braking performance numbers for both the wet and dry tests, no compromises were made in order to achieve better wet or dry performance.

Add to this the compound doesn't have anything nasty in it that will cause extra wear on the rims - we're pretty happy



http://kotavelo.com.au/store/products/w ... e-pad.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;