uoficowboy

Hi - I recently switched over to Koolstop salmon pads for my cantilever brakes. This is on a touring style bicycle that I use for my daily commute. They squeal horrendously. And the front has a different frequency of squeal than the back, which is fun. I think the general advice is that you want the part of the brake pad that is closer to the front of the bicycle to hit the rim first - but these pads are strange - they have little flexible parts in the back that stick out. So I feel like I'm almost guaranteed to always have the back hit first.

I've included a picture to show what I mean. Note that these are cartridge style brakes. I'm looking down on them from above, and this is my rear wheel. On the right you can see that the pad sticks out a bit more than the rest of the pad - ie that it is not flat. I do not believe it is possible to have that part in front, as, IIRC, there was only one slot for the pin to go into in the pad (the pin that keeps the pad from sliding out of the cartridge).

Should I just adjust the brakes to try to get the front of them (the part closer to the front of the bike) to hit earlier? Should it hit even earlier than the springy part in the back? These are strange pads... Not used to them!