ax0n

At first I thought it might be just because I had a brand new bike with new brakes and new wheels, but it's kind of getting out of control now.

I can only ride about 50-100 miles on my road bike before I start to get massive amounts of grinding noise coming from the brake pads. When I take the pads out, there are pieces of metal that almost look like flaky pencil lead in all my pads. I'm kind of assuming it's aluminum from my wheels, though. From what I can tell, the chunks of metal get more prominent as time goes on, as they scrape more and more microscopic layers off of my rims.

This is a Trek 1200 with the OEM brake pads and wheels.

Has anyone seen this before? Right now, I take the pads off the bike every time I clean it, and with a pointy object, pry the pieces of metal out of the brake pads. It's getting pretty old, though. Would new brake pads (Kool Stop, for example) fix it, or is this something else?

pityr

Those are parts of your rims and other gunk, swap out the stock trek pads with something else like the koolstop blacks (or salmon if you get wet).

I have a 1200 as well and had the same problem. Stock trek pads suck.

well biked

I'd recommend the salmons regardless. They're a slightly softer pad, they stop as well as any pad out there from my experience (better in the wet, just as good in the dry), and because of the slightly softer compound they're even easier on your rims than other Kool Stops-

jsharr

Had the exact same problem with my Trek 1200. Seems like the stock pads really pulled metal from teh rims. I swithced to Shimano Dura Ace pads and have had no problems since. Also check the reach on your calipers. It was too short on mine and the pads could get into the tires very easily.