Chrome rims = Rubbish braking?

[Broadside]

I've got an old Raleigh Magnum MTB as my station bike that I bought off eBay about 6 months ago, I only cover 4 miles on it each day. The brakes on it are bad in the dry but pretty dangerous in the wet. I have adjusted the cable tension but I don't think that is the problem. The bike has chrome rims and I intended to rough the blocks up a bit to see if that would help.

I unexpectedly found that the blocks seem to have a suede like layer on top of the rubber, so the rubber doesn't actually contact the rim. All 4 blocks are the same. Is this right? Is there a different type of block that I could use to improve performance or do I need to accept that chrome rims on old bikes give extremely bad braking performance compared to modern alloy rims?

 

[Globalti]

Never seen that suadey stuff before, I wonder what that is? Maybe someone stuck it on to improve the braking?

You're right, chrome rims will never brake well. Just ride a little slower around the station.

 

[mickle]

You have leather faced blocks. Though even they cannot make chrome rims into a decent brake surface. If your rims are in good nick you might try a modern synthetic block. Steel rims are much more prone to dents than aluminium rims. If your rims have any dents synthetic blocks will make them dangerously snatchy.

Your best option is a new aluminium rimmed front wheel paired with synthetic blocks. Shouldn't cost much more than £20 all up for entry level kit.

 

[TheDoctor]

I remember those!! Raincheck brake blocks . It's a strip of chrome leather that takes the wet braking from 'utterly non-existent' to 'pretty crap, all things considered'.
Alloy rims are your answer. Braking on steel rims is purest rubbish.

And Mickle beat me to it, the fiend

 

[mickle]

Though if you want to spend £0.00 take a file to the rim surface.

 

[Gerry Attrick]

You could try Koolstop salmon blocks, but I wouldn't try any endurance events!

 

[Broadside]

Thanks everyone for the quick replies. I only paid £23 for the bike and it is heavy as a dog so I won't plan to spend anything on it. It will do for now until I save up for an old fixie to use for my station run instead. At least I know to stop wasting time trying to improve the brakes...

 

[tyred]

Some leather pads seems to work pretty well, others are much worse than rubber pads in my experience. What you could try are some very hard compound rubber pads. The basic rubber block pads traditionally used on old roadsters are still cheaply available and work to an acceptable standard but I suspect you have cantilever brakes on an MTB. Have a look on the Fibrax webpage, they sell pads for just about all brake types.

I wouldn't roughen the braking surface on the rim. I have tried and it just eats pads and doesn't really improve braking anyway. I would clean the braking surface with some sort of degreaser but the brakes will never work as well as on alloy rims. Just ride with your increased stopping distances in mind, make sure cables are in good condition, pull the brakes hard and say a prayer that the obstacle will remove itself from your path.

There is just one advantage to chrome rims. They tend to stay clean so you can fix a puncture without getting covered in black gunge.