Bicycle Mechanics - XTR cantilever pads -- what's the deal?

i ran ritchey canti brakes back in the day with ritchey pads and they worked well for me.

recently i scored a bike's worth of NOS XTR cantis. the brakes have great stopping power but sometimes the pads are noisey. i washed my bike this weekend and my front and rear brakes took turns being noisey on my ride today.

one noise they made (frt then back) was like rocks were embedded into the pads, and then my frt brake got noisier and noiser on longer descents when i was braking.

this wasn't brake howl like from having no toe-in on the pads.

i've used these brakes for about a month or so and they've been noisey a couple of other times but today was the worst.

is there a better non-threaded pad?

thanx,

ed rader

mathaueser (sp?) pads were the best. real hard to find nowadays though.

Kool-Stop salmon-colored canti pads are waaay better. I have the non-threaded canti version, and am using them with similarly old LX canti brakes. They work very well in all conditions and cost me about $12 for the set when they were on sale at Nashbar. Any LBS can get them for you as well.

And the kool stop salmons use the same compound as the old Scott-Mathauser pads mentioned above. Best pad compound out there in my opinion-

thanx guys. i'll get some kool stops :) .

ed rader

Depending on how "O" the "NOS" brakes were, the pads could be age or exposure hardened. These things could easily be 10 years old and just need fresh pads from good any supplier. I concur that Kools Stops are the class act for brake pads of any type.