Rim life - shimano vs. other brake pads?

[chintan jadwani]

I was looking for reviews on a specific rim (Sun CR18) and ended up on a Thorn forum where users kept mentioning that they were experiencing shorter rim life as Shimano brake pads were eating up the brake surface much faster - and switching brake pads made a significant difference.

I'm curious if any of your experiences have been similar?

chintan

[Will Boericke]

I only ever use Kool Stop Salmon or SwissStop BXP.  No other pad is worth my time.  I fully realize my post is not useful to you at all :)

Will

[Josh (BertoBerg)]

100% agree with Will. I use Swissstop GXP Blues on my road bikes and Kool Stop salmons on everything else (Paul’s, MAFAC’s, etc.). I find that Kool Stop blacks chew through rims in our Seattle weather. 

Josh

Seattle, WA

[Brian Forsee]

At the risk of sending this thread on a tangent, I will pose a related question.

How do you measure rim wear due to braking? Anecdotally? Or do you put numbers to it? How worn do you go before replacing a rim purely due to brake wear?

-Brian 

[Will Boericke]

I look for concavity, though I like rims that have wear indicators built in.  Once I can see the concavity, I start to worry about it but I think you can ride a rim for a pretty long time in that state (depending on conditions, obviuously).  Riding daily through the winter, I go through rims in 3-4 years.

Will

[George Schick]

Another way to measure rim wear is by using an "iwanson gauge."  This tool is actually intended to be used by dentists to measure the thickness of crowns, etc.  But it works great for this purpose, as well.  The tiny calipers at the pivot end of the tool are spread by pushing in on one side of the gauge and then reading the thickness of the material on the curved scale at the bottom.  If the rim is worn into a concave pattern where the brake pads contact it, that thickness will measure less than upper or lower parts of the rim.  If the entire surface is worn, there are advisories on the Web that will tell you what the minimum thickness should be.  It works great and is pretty cheap - usually about $10 or so.

[Bernard Duhon]

 

 

I have two sets of 26 inch rims:

one has dots periodically drilled into the surface. When the surface gets worn down & the dots disappear and you should replace the rim.

 

I have another set which has a groove all the way around the rim in the center of the breaking surface. When that grove disappears it's time to replace the rim.

 

It was a practice common though not universal in mountain bike rims.

 

All rim brake manufacturers should do that.

 

Measuring wear with a set of calipers is imprecise at best.

 

Each rim manufacturer may have different standards as to how thin the breaking surface can get before replacement. If they do there are  a lot of “ safety considerations ” baked in.

 

After 12,000 miles of few gravel & fewer hills the  “dots” are still visible.>

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[chintan jadwani]

Thread successfully derailed :) 

FWIW - this thread and article triggered the question for me whether I should continue using the Shimano pads I have on my bike (s) or replace them.

https://thorncyclesforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=1236.0

https://novemberbicycles.com/blogs/blog/brake-pad-tech-rim-brakes