Hey all, a buddy of mine just got a Bontrager carbon disc wheel(along with a new Lucero. I hate him). The carbon pads to go with it aren’t in yet. He has a really important race this Sunday that has an 11 mile bike with a decent amount of 90 degree turns.
Question:will it be detrimental to ride this one race with regular rubber pads.
Thanks all
I’d race it…use the front brake…in 11 miles I don’t think you’d do much damage though. use the rear brake lightly!!
Maybe I should add this to my “Dirty Secrets” post… I have NEVER used special pads on any of my carbon wheels. They work well enough.
If it’s an all carbon disc with no metal rim?.. you really need cork brakes and the normal ones will just slide on the carbon. It makes a really loud sound (no big deal) but it can be potentially very unsafe (especially if it gets wet!!!)
He’ll be fine with normal pads. I have never noticed a decrease in performance when I’ve ridden my 909 wheelset in wet conditions. This includes Wildflower 2 years ago in the deluge.
One of the things he should do though is to check the pads and make sure that there aren’t any little shards of metal imbedded in them since they could damage his carbon wheelset. It only takes a few minutes to pick out the bits with a pointy tool (I use an awl) and then some sort of file (emory board, metal file, etc.) to clean up the pad surface a little.
Or if he’s particular he could just buy an extra set of normal pads and have those be used only with his race wheels.
-Darrell
You can use any set of carbon specific brake pads with a bontrager disc. shimano makes them and so does corima as does zipp. a set of zipp pads is about $12…
they work better, but clean regular pads will work well - but slower if it’s raining.