I was reading on Sheldon's site that buying a brake that includes the 'entire shoe assembly' will give better performance then just replacing the pad.

I've always used pads like these where after the pad wears out the entire 'shoe' is disposable:




This is the alternative. With these you have the option of buying new pads and continuing to use your old shoes:



Which do you prefer? If you have used both, do you agree that the 'disposable shoes' yield better performance? It makes sense that they might given that a 'one piece' system might be more solid in comparison to a system with removable parts, although it's hard to say for sure without first hand experience.

In terms of cost savings, a pair of 'disposable pads and shoes' is about $11, and just replacing the actual pad would be about $8.

All things being equal, they will be..

the second set of friction material inserts will be a modest savings,
over just buying another one piece molded to the bolt , brake shoes.
that $3 savings will add up over time, several replacements ..

Kool Stop Salmon compound brake shoes are good , in either type.
Top one is for a different style of brake caliper than the other..

The pad material will make a larger difference, in my experience. I go with the reusable shoes simply because it is much faster to replace just the pad than the whole shoe.

I haven't noticed a difference in performance between one-piece Kool Stops and Kool Stop inserts in a cartridge shoe, but it would have to be a pretty big difference for me to notice as I haven't attempted any sort of measurement.

I prefer the replaceable system because I feel like there's less waste. It doesn't hurt that replacement pads are cheaper.

For those of you using 'reusable' shoes, do you experience any problems with squealing?

I have yet to find a brake shoe that I can't make squeal by setting it up sloppily. On the other hand, my disc brakes are the only ones that I can't get to be quiet with proper adjustment.

The reason I ask about squealing is that all sound is the product of vibrations. For example, in order to speak we vibrate our vocal cords. If the reusable system has more 'play' during high torque braking, they would at least in theory be more prone to squealing in comparison to a brake pad that is permanently bonded to the shoe.

That's just in theory, so you tell me your experiences.

send me money I can move, back, to a university and work on that on an engineering
post grad degree track.

I have bent the old Mafac cantilever pads holders to toe them in, before.

new this season or 2 is a TRP adjust in place Cantilever brake shoe ,
a bolt runs thru the plain post and a concasve/convex surface in the other parts
allow the angle to be done.
flexing between frame parts and the cables in tension have been shown to augment squeal.

so Fork crown mounted housing stops , shorten that up,
V brakes are pretty well isolated the direct pull is just between the arms..

Best squeal free braking out of my Rim braked bikes is Magura's HS 33 a hydraulic rim brake.

they fit on cantilever/V brake posts, but don't use them as a pivot.

and a heavy thick wall tube set on my Loaded touring frame
and rather massive Scott- Peterson self energizing cantilevers .

part of squeal one may think is the light frame tubes being torqued, wound up,
while the brakes are squeezing the rim,
so there is a tension of cable pull and tube windup, as the force is applied,
pad and rim interface , frame flexibility, all sorts of forces interacting.

add surface glazing of the brake pad, and rubber deposits on the rim.
and so on and so forth ..

I have experimented w/ the reusable kind; I had hoped they would be easier to use, that I could just slide the old pads out and new ones in and not have to deal w/ adjusting, but it turns out that with old holders, it's just harder to get the old pads out and new ones in and I still need to completely readjust them anyway because the new pads are of course much thicker and generally a different shape than the old ones were by the time I pulled them out.

I use whatever's already on the bike, which has been cartridge pads for what... two decades now?

It *may* be that the metal back of cartridge pad carriers transfers the brake arm pressure to the tips of the pads better. It *will* be that you can't actually perceive the difference, and so this doesn't matter.

I prefer the cartridges as they're quicker to renew - the only adjustment required for the thicker new pad should be at the cable barrel adjuster.

I think "squealiness" is as much related to hardness of the pad as anything. Cheap hard pads seem more prone.