Overheating with shaved Arai
Well, let me be the first one to post about over-heating a shaved Arai drum brake.
It happened last summer, on the steepest hills of the Cabot Trail in Nova Scotia. I was riding a Co-Mo Speedster (shaving from Mel, of course, as well as a stoker-controlled lever brake). With my wife and about 35 lbs of rear pannier weight, our total weight sans bike was about 325 lbs.
We had to stop repeatedly to allow the brake to cool down. I'm not sure how hot those babies are supposed to get, but even with the water pouring down (the most beautiful scenery day = the fogged in, rainy, day -- go figure...) the brake was sizzling.
Eventually, an SUV from a group of people who were mixing riding and driving an SUV stopped, put the bike on the rear rack (yes, the tandem stayed safe!) and gave us a ride down the hill.
The same thing happened on the one big downhill on the next day, which was sunny. However, after the trip I took off the brake cover and cleaned the pads up--I have not had any problem with them this year in the Finger Lakes, which offers up some pretty steep hills.
Now, I wouldn't say for sure this was due to the shaving, but I own another tandem with an unshaved Arai, and never had this problem. Mel tells me he has gone down steeper roads with no problem, so maybe it was that particular brake unit. In retrospect, I wished I had put on a new set of brake pads for my rim brakes--they were about 3/4 done. If I were to do it again, I would take the unshaved route--shaving the brake must void the warranty.