Living in dusty, dry Colorado, I have trouble wrapping my head around this frequent comment about Portland riding. Where does all this "grit" come from? I've been through Portland on a bike and the area has far less distrubed soils than Denver does. Here in Denver, if you scrape off the vegetation, you are likely to have exposed dirt for weeks to months on end. We also get wind storms that blow that grit around.

Portland which gets 40" of rain per year should sprout grass and other vegetation almost in hours. That amount of rain which is about 4 times what Denver gets, should move any grit that does manage to get out from under all those plants off the roads and into the rivers. You can certainly see where the water flows here in Denver by the sand bars that form on the roads.

Up until a few years ago, Denver and Colorado actually added grit to the roads during the winter in the form of tons of sand. They added enough sand to the roads that the Colorado State symbol was a cracked windshield. You would think that with all that grit, I, as a year around rider, would have blown through wheel sets and brake pads on a semi-annual basis.

But I don't. I've had more rims fail due to actual wheel damage than to wear and my rubber pads often have to be replaced due to weathering...we have a higher ozone level here than many places do...than due to actual wear. My touring bike has the same pads I used for a 1500 mile loaded tour in Appalachia with 86,000 feet of descending in 2012 as well as a tour in Arkansas in 2010 and a tour in Missouri in 2008 and a tour along the Columbia River in 2005. The total distance on the pads is approaching 5000 miles of loaded touring and I'm not expecting to replace them any time soon.