Life expectancy for brake pads

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Ian Long
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Life expectancy for brake pads

Post by Ian Long »

Following Steve's rapid demolition of his brake pads......

By the end of yesterday's ride, Neroli's brakes had faded quite significantly, so I figured it was time to give them a bit of TLC.

Neroli seems to wear through her front and rear pads at about the same rate. Or at least last time when I had to replace one pair, the other pair were also at the end of their life expectancy. Since I had to replace the front pads mid ride a month or so ago, I knew the rears were getting low. If you look at the attached photo, I think you'll probably agree that I am a bit late changing them - one pad is down to the metal, the other has been on the metal for a while - there is no sign of any pad and even the retaining clip has been worn away!

Any way, back to the original question of life expectancy. We bought the bikes in May and rode them 3-4 times a week through out the summer. We had to replace the first set of pads mid honeymoon towards the end of August. Since then we have been riding about once a week but in much wetter, muddier conditions. Either way, five months of riding seems to be about what we can expect.
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Al Donald
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Post by Al Donald »

Generally speaking, resin based pads will wear a lot faster than sintered, especially in the wet, but may give slightly reduced performance. I'm getting quite a bit of wear already on my rear brake pads (but then I do tend to drag them a lot downhill :roll: ). The replacements will be sintered.
steve powell
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Post by steve powell »

Arnt sintered pads a lot harder on the discs.

I have had this conversation with motorcyclists where the brake rate is much higher and the discs are probably alot more expensive, so maybe its more of an issue than with mountain bikes.

I'll check mine before this weekends stint (if we can make it).

Steve
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MartinF
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More on brakes

Post by MartinF »

Amazingly, I'm still on the same rear pads that were fitted when I bought the bike last May. There's still some wear left in them, though I'm keeping my eyes on them each ride. I don't know whether or not they're sintered, but I have a sintered pair to replace them with when the time comes.

I changed the front ones in Jan with non-sintered ones (that's what I had at the time!).
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