Forever cleaning my wheel rims & B blocks to prevent abrasion “damage” .

[Mrs M]

I clean my bikes religiously, even got into trouble from the LBS for cleaning too much.
The rims on my road bike wore out so much I had to get new wheels, changed the brake blocks too.
No problems since though, touch wood .

 

[night cycler]

Keeping the rims clean to the extent you are (and the guy with the baby wipes) is futile. The type of damage you are describing is due to a type of rubber in the brake block that picks up aluminium from the rim and embeds it in the block itself. No amount of cleaning will solve this. You have to change brake blocks. We have written about this before. If you search for words like "embed", "pick-up" and Koolstop you will find some useful information about the phenomena, including some photos of experiments done to demonstrate the difference between Koolstop and other pads.

I have read your posts on the subject from August 2015 (together with the clear photos of the brake block comparisons). I felt that what you explained made a lot of sense. It was explained with such clarity and logic, supported by the technical explanations of why the issues are occurring. I want to try the “Koolstop Salmon” brake blocks, after reading the report. Swissstop green were also mentioned in the thread.

Where are the guys purchasing the Koolstops from? I`ll do a search anyway and see what comes up.

 

[mjr]

Rims are an item that wear and will need replacing at some point, apart from discs there is very little you can do about it.

Hub brakes! Discs are still exposed, just not as near to the shoot.

 

[Tim Hall]

Rose bikes in Germany have red ones for a good price. Are these the same as salmon? Otherwise I think wiggle do them.

 

[RoubaixCube]

what you wanna do is just pack a few things like a brush, degreaser, chain lube, a clean rag or two and head down to your local petrol station and use their jet wash and give your bike a good blast. All that muck will come off the bike in no time. wipe the bike and chain down afterwards, re-lube the chain and lock the bike up while you go buy some cigs or chilled beverage. by the time you come back the bike should be ready to go.


(obviously while this idea works, I know its inconvenient as hell if not a little silly)

 

[fossyant]

wash mine every wet ride. I used to wear rims out in 18 months on the commute even with clean rims

 

[Yellow Saddle]

I have read your posts on the subject from August 2015 (together with the clear photos of the brake block comparisons). I felt that what you explained made a lot of sense. It was explained with such clarity and logic, supported by the technical explanations of why the issues are occurring. I want to try the “Koolstop Salmon” brake blocks, after reading the report. Swissstop green were also mentioned in the thread.

Where are the guys purchasing the Koolstops from? I`ll do a search anyway and see what comes up.

Thanks for the feedback. I used to buy mine from Harris Cyclery in Massachusets, USA. They sent the via US Postal. However, I don't know if there is an agent in the UK for Koolstop. They really make a huge difference. @Tim Hall mentioned the red ones. Although they are not the same, they are actually the ones Koolstop recommends for wet weather. They are slightly softer and less durable. I had those red ones on my V-brake mountainbike back in my racing days and obviously went through some really gritty, muddy stuff. I've forgotton about that actually, now that I only ride on the road. Thus, get red or salmon, it doesn't matter.

Don't expect to not hear the familiar noisy scrape/grind when you apply brakes at first. The pads have to wipe the grit of first and that takes one or two revolutions of the wheel. However, after that there should be no ingress into the pad itself, which causes that continuous grind and metal pick-up you experienced. Let us know if you were successful in sourcing Koolstops.

 

[vickster]

Wiggle, among others, sell a range of koolstop pads

http://www.wiggle.co.uk/kool-stop/rim-brake-pads/

Or try your LBS

 

[Elybazza61]

Find that Shimano blocks(even ultegra)make a right mess on rims compared to the Swissstop BXP's I mostly use;try and keep on top of the rims with soapy water and a soft scourer and then using a cleaning block periodically as well.
Don't have this problem with the Planet X and it's discs although wet weather makes them squeal nicely though

 

[Poacher]

I usually get mine from Spa cycles; they're often cheaper than Wiggle, but note that their free postage doesn't kick in until an order value of £50, compared with Wiggle's £10.

 

[DWiggy]

My rims are grooved, the wheels are only about 8 months old it was the cheep lifeline pads started the damage, switched to Koolstops as soon as I realised which has slowed the damage.
My cleaning and maintenance borders on obsessive side so it's not down to that just the poor weather conditions with plenty of mucky, grimy, salty miles, when I get some pennies saved I will get a new bike with disks as the wheels and bearings are fine apart from the rims.

 

[Globalti]

Funny that this discussion should be happening now on an internet forum. Had such fora existed 25 years ago you'd have seen the same discussion in relation to mountain bike rims; I've had two rims go so concave that the bead has peeled out like an opened can releasing the inner tube like a strangled anaconda and riding in snow once I had a small sharp stone embed itself in ice on the block and score a neat groove right round the braking surface, meaning I had to fit a new rim. I got to be quite good at replacing rims by taping new alongside old and transferring the spokes over. In the last 15 years though, disc brakes have become almost universal on mountain bikes so the internet doesn't discuss the subject.

As Yellow Saddle says it's a fact of life and if you think it's bad on a road bike, go back to rim-braked mountain bikes and try them in the mud. In one weekend Polaris event carrying overnight kit we would go through two sets of brake blocks.

 

[DWiggy]

Would carbon wheels last longer or do they suffer the same as Ali?

 

[jay clock]

I use these red pads and had fantastic results with them http://www.discobrakes.com/?s=0&t=2&c=52&p=283&tb=001

 

[Yellow Saddle]

Would carbon wheels last longer or do they suffer the same as Ali?

That's a completely different can of worms.

Firstly, should grit get between the pads and rim, the grinding down is worse and generally catastrophic for the wheel. The noise is something else too.

Carbon wheels pose different problems for rim brakes and we've seen the tail end of rim-braked carbon wheels now with the advent of discs. Carbon fiiber encased in resin is an extremely poor conductor of heat and melt most rubber pads. Therefore they require pads that don't go from solid to liquid but rather a pad that sublimates directly to gas. It may sound strange but that's exactly what wood does and hence the use of cork in carbon brake pads.

The fact that you are using a heat-resistant material on there don't make them better at stopping though, but that's a different story altogether.

Many riders would swap wheels 'cause they need different wheels for riding to church than for posing with outside the muffin shop. If the one set is aluminium and the other carbon, they have to swap brake pads too. A rubber pad with embedded aluminium is a death knell for carbon rims.