thatsut

id like to know how to reduce rim wear. is there anything better than salmon cool stop pads. other than disc, or hub brake etc that you know?

Panthers007

Coaster-brakes. Or carry a Ship's anchor on a rope and throw it backwards over your shoulder. Or - jam a heavy-duty walking-stick or pump through the spokes. Won't hurt the rims. But it will hurt, for many well-established reasons, more things. Not to mention the many cyclists who come and gawk at your battered body.

thatsut

i also find crashing into fat people quiet effective, comfortable too...no ...reallly,....come on someserious answers please

Steev

I'm guessing the excessive wear is happening when riding in poor conditions. Cleaning the accumulated grime from the rim and brake pads very regularly should help.

thatsut

thanks yes poor conditions and my rims dont really get dirty

Steev

My experience is that it's the thin coating of fine particles that make effective grinding compound.

bikinfool

No magic that I know of other than avoiding wet conditions generally. Ceramic coated rims are the best wearing rims I've used.

reueladhikari

Rigida Tungsten Carbide Rims... pricey though: https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/product-R...Hole-18845.htm

JohnDThompson 

Hub brakes (coaster/drum/disc) will eliminate your rim wear problems.

garage sale GT

Hub brakes will cause the spokes to fatigue sooner, though.

The cost of the cheapest c/b rivals the cost of a new rim, and severely limits your drivetrain choices as well as only fitting certain frames.

Disc hubs will require a frame and fork which is made for discs, as well as new hubs or wheelset, and brake system.

There is a sturmey drum brake hub for cassettes, freewheels, or with an included gearhub, but it is pricey and distributors in the US don't stock it.

So the rim won't last forever. Big deal. Think of it as brake pads or tires. Replace when worn.

If you ride often, the rim and spokes will fail from fatigue eventually anyway. Plus, there's always a chance you will damage a rim on a road hazard, so why spend hundreds on a new brake system to protect the rim?

Carry a water bottle to rinse grit off your brake pads.

davidad

Rim wear is a fact of life. The best pads are the shimano DA pads for stopping in the wet or dry according to "Bicycle Science".
If you have a common rim you can replace it when it wears out without worring about the spokes or hub.

ryanwood

clean your rims and brake pads regularly. Just because they look clean doesn't mean they are clean.

HillRider

+1 That's good advice. Also, check your brake pads for embedded particles that act as cutting tools.

LesterOfPuppets

I scrub my rims and pads with laundry detergent and water up to 3 times a week in the winter.

Every once in a while I take some sandpaper to the pads to refresh the braking surface. Take a compass point or other sharp tool to dig bits of debris out of the pads if necessary.

urbanknight

+1 to cleaning rims after any ride in poor conditions, whether they look clean or not. A little alcohol swab does the trick for me, and it doesn't hurt to clean the pads as well, sometimes even with some fine grit sandpaper.

cnnrmccloskey

Fixie skidzzzzzzzzzzzzz?

wmodavis

Only ride uphill.

Carbonfiberboy 

Riding in the rain makes grinding compound. Nothing to be done except clean your rims after every ride or don't ride in the rain. I haven't found a more rim-safe pad than those you mention.

BUT!

All you need to do is build a set of rain wheels with Mavic Open Pro Ceramic rims. Then you have to use the ceramic pads, too. But that totally solves the problem. Well, I shouldn't say totally, but I've yet to see a set wear out and I ride with lots of rando freaks. I've never seen built wheels for sale, but you can build them yourself or have them built.

Next, you have to try to figure out what's the best rain hub.

operator

That would be something with cartridge bearings. Phil probably if you can drop the coin on those. Those hubs will last you a lifetime.

sknhgy 

If I can ride enough to wear out my bike I figure I'm doing something good. A lot of bikes die a slow, rusty death in a garage somewhere's.

Grand Bois

The secret ingriedient in salmon Kool Stop pads is iron oxide (rust), so I suspect that they are more abrasive than other pads.

JohnDThompson 

Not in my experience. I've been using drum brakes (Maillard) on my commuter bike for almost 30 years now without a single spoke failure.

mustang1

I didn't think rims would wear that quickly but like others have said, keep your rims and pads clean. I dont worry about my Aksiums. If I get time to clean them, then I will, if not, I carry on (though I typically clean them if braking performance is diminished). If the rims wear out, I'll just buy new wheels.

My feeling is the rims wont wear out for some time.

Panthers007

Using Kool Stop (or SwissStop) pads that have Ferric Oxide - the "salmon" developed by Scott Mathauser in the 1970's - may well be a trade off. Greater stopping-power v. faster wear to rims. My trade is better stopping power. I can always build new wheels.

I agree that the ceramic rims will last MUCH longer than others. And the brake-pads you can choose is a matter of choice (I use SwissStop Green). They are ceramic as they are edged with fused zirconium and titanium and aluminum oxide - placed on the rims by powerful electro-arc welding - something such as that. They won't tell you what the composition is anymore. Proprietary formula. But they will outlast any other rim you find. Any ceramic.

I have the Mavic Open Pro ceramics. I can't even tell they've been ridden. Problems for some are brake-squeal. And slower stopping in dry conditions. Both can be taken care of through practice and proper toe-in.

Enjoy!

MichaelW

Ive only ridden one rim to the point of failure, the entire outer section split away . It was a cheap rigida rim used for winter commuting in the rain.
Use a rim with a wear indicator. Cleaning the bike is good idea in theory but in practice who wants to get soap and water out after a hard days work, on a cold, windy, rainy night. Better to use a set of suitable training wheels and accept that they have a finite lifespan.