Cycling UK Forum

Hi

A year or so back I chose to replace my complete wheel sets rather than just the worn rims. A number of reasons; originals were budget quality, races were a bit worn etc. So I bought a pair of wheels from SJS. HB-RM70 hubs and unbranded eyelet rims. I know this is all budget stuff too.

I have posted in other threads on the subject of rim brakes about my frustration with the number of times I come back from a ride with grating brakes, and have to take the pads off and hook out huge lumps of alloy to get back to a quiet life. It's generally when it's wet/muddy, and I figure the sequence of events is, grit gets under the pads, digs out alloy, embeds itself in the pads and grates doing more damage until I clean them out.

My question is, are all rims equal in this respect? I can't imagine so. I know there are rims with coatings or even ones impregnated with better wearing material, but this is recent innovation I think. Rim brakes have been used by thousands of people for years and I can't believe they all have to do what I'm doing.

I keep thinking of drum or disk brakes but can't really believe this is the only answer. I like the simplicity of rim brakes.

What about other materials like stainless rims? I know they seem popular on Dutch bikes.

Steel rims were once common, but they were heavy and (worse) did not brake well in the wet.

I have some old Tungsten Carbide impregnated rims that have thousands of miles in them and still have perfectly flat sides. They brake well and they seem set to last forever. But (and it is a big but) I had real problems with them when they were younger. Initially all was fine, but after a few hundred miles my brakes struggled to bite in the wet. I had a few "change of underwear" moments as I had difficulty stopping when the lights changed. I was using the recommended Swisstop blue brake pads. Eventually the surface must have worn slightly because magically the stopping problems disappeared. So now I have two wheel rims that outlast hubs! I built one into a new wheel a couple of weeks ago.

531 colin reckons these wheels work well with Koolstop Salmon blocks. The rims are Grizzly CSS (for 28mm+ tyres).

Anodised rims have a hard coating which is "claimed" to reduce wear. The effectiveness I have heard called into question more than once.
Ceramic coatings seem to divide opinion as well.

Which brake pads you use can make a lot of difference. If you are getting grit and bits of metal in them on a regular basis, swap to a different brand (I use Koolstop).
If you just carry on, the wheel rims will wear out fairly quickly.

andrew_s wrote:Which brake pads you use can make a lot of difference. If you are getting grit and bits of metal in them on a regular basis, swap to a different brand (I use Koolstop).
If you just carry on, the wheel rims will wear out fairly quickly.

After a recent thread I switched to BBB Tricolour (although they are black!). Initially I thought it was better, but it is definitely condition dependant. Was out in the rain at the weekend, and had to clean pads when I got home, yesterday and today, out in the dry and all is well.

I really think it's the rims being butter soft. I often find rough shards still connected to the wheel. I have to remove these with wet & dry!

if soft rims you need soft pads and I find that deep, angled grooves help too.

But when all is said and done if you ride soft rims in the mud & grime, they are gonna wear.

Stainless steel rims will last longer but they are much heavier.

If you are concerned about rim wear and don't want to spend a lot, something like a rigida grizzly is a probably a good choice.

Rims are consumables....

cheers

Brucey wrote:
Rims are consumables....

cheers

That I can live with, its the continual cleaning of the brakes I find a PITA.

Cheers Barry

well you don't have to clean them, but your rims won't last as long....

BTW there is a trick with rim brakes, which is if they start to be noisy (because there is crud in the brake block), you can often persuade the crud to come out of where it is lodged by simply applying the brake firmly for about a second, then letting off for a second and then repeating. If you are lucky the piece of crud will escape on about the second or third application. Lots of experienced riders to this habitually.

The above technique appears to be largely pointless with hard compound brake blocks but works OK with softer ones.

cheers

The stuff I get in the pads, which I assume is aluminium, is buried deep in the pad and has to be dug out with a pen knife. By the time I've heard it grinding it has already embedded itself and become quite shiny where it has rubbed.

Can be very fast on rear rims used on wet lanes. Kool Stop salmon pads don't embed alloy chips so are better than some others. I solved the problem in the end with a rear coaster brake and a front ceramic rim (and Swisstop blue pads).

rogerzilla wrote:I solved the problem in the end with a rear coaster brake and a front ceramic rim (and Swisstop blue pads).

I'm thinking along those lines. Very tempted to get a nice 531 frame with forward dropouts an get an SA3 with drum built for the back, and a drum for the front. All that's stopping me is the extra complexity. I like simple minimalist bikes. Rim brakes and QR wheels are as simple as it gets. Drum brakes with torque arms etc just too fiddly.

andrew_s wrote:Which brake pads you use can make a lot of difference. If you are getting grit and bits of metal in them on a regular basis, swap to a different brand (I use Koolstop).
If you just carry on, the wheel rims will wear out fairly quickly.

+1
Koolstops will reduce the amount of grating and grit embedded into the pads.I found that BBB Techstop for dual pivot brakes or Tristop for V's totally eliminated grit pick/grating,are very rim friendly,stop better in wet weather.
The slight downside is that they wear slightly quicker than other pads due to a softer rubber compound. It seems counter intuitive to think they wouldn't pick up grit but for some reason they don't.
Great pads IME

The BBBs I have are very hard in comparison to the Clark ones I used previously. I'll try some Koolstops and see how it goes.

barrym wrote:The stuff I get in the pads, which I assume is aluminium, is buried deep in the pad and has to be dug out with a pen knife. By the time I've heard it grinding it has already embedded itself and become quite shiny where it has rubbed.

Normally a small piece of grit is what gets stuck in the pad first. This then gouges out aluminium from the rim. What you see in the brake block looks like a chunk of aluminium only but it very rarely is just that. If you are not vigilant you can even leave the grit or whatever stuck in the pad so it will just do the same thing again.

BTW don't dismiss the interrupted braking technique without trying it; after all, when you are first aware that the brakes are noisy you will still need to stop and you may as well do it that way as any other.

If you are routinely picking up a lot of crud in the brake blocks you do need to do something different; in the short run that only leaves you different brake blocks (softer compound) and/or a different braking technique.

cheers

Brucey wrote:
If you are routinely picking up a lot of crud in the brake blocks you do need to do something different; in the short run that only leaves you different brake blocks (softer compound) and/or a different braking technique.

cheers

Do you mean softer? That seems counter intuitive.

As for a different technique, I am trying to make more use of the front which doesn't seem so susceptible.

Still searching for the Kool Stop pads. Not sure exactly which ones. I have V brakes with replaceable pads.