Keep an eye on pad wear

[rusty bearing]

Not really a 'know how' more a reminder to keep an eye on those disc pads, we've had three bikes through the workshop in the last fornight with the owners describing the brakes as
"making a really horrible noise"
How long for?
"Oh, a couple of weeks maybe"

In all three cases the pads were worn down into the metal backing! Now I know that its easy to forget, Ive nearly caught myself out before now, but when you clean your bike as I'm sure we all do very often just keep an eye on them, I use 3mm as a minimum for combined pad/backing thickness when deciding if I need new.

 

[Garz]

or keep an eye on the wear indicator mark..

 

[rusty bearing]

True for everything but disc pads, Still we now have electronic gear shifting could we not pad wear warning lights on a small bar mounted dashboard?

 

[ColinJ]

I destroyed a MTB wheel rim by trying to get 'just one more ride' out of a pair of v-brake blocks. I was on a long fast technical bridleway descent and had no option but to brake hard and continue braking even though I could immediately tell that the blocks had just worn through!

 

[rusty bearing]

Not just me then? A grinding noise first alerted me to the fact that the blocks were more than a little worn on a ride out from some remote hills in Scotland.
'Tis a potentially expensive thing to neglect. Like house roofs really, no-one bothers till they start leaking badly

 

[Holdsworth]

I managed to get 900 miles out of the front brake pads that came with the bike. They finally wore through at the start of a 40 mile ride back home from Shrewsbury, I had no choice but to ride home with them worn, luckily with minimal braking required. The pad's metal backing was showing but fortunately there was no damage to the rim.

 

[fenlandpsychocyclist]

I had a caliper binding the other week, didn't notice it to be honest due to the power at my disposal.
The first i knew was sitting at the traffic lights and i could smell "brakes burning".
Anyway, i got out of my 4.0 litre car and found one of my rear disks glowing cherry red!

As for the mountain bike ... i made the disks go blue on that freewheeling down snowdon.

 

[alecstilleyedye]

I managed to get 900 miles out of the front brake pads that came with the bike. They finally wore through at the start of a 40 mile ride back home from Shrewsbury, I had no choice but to ride home with them worn, luckily with minimal braking required. The pad's metal backing was showing but fortunately there was no damage to the rim.

my club does an annual weekender to bishop's castle, and last time we came back over the mynd. the descent of that (30mph and a sheep threatens to run out with a car coming up the other way) pretty much did for my front blocks and i was relieved when told that there were no further descents of any significance on the way home…