Quick Brake pad question
 

Thanks for all those who offered advice on y previous question. We tour in Japan and can easily spend 1 hour going down mountains, which explains in part my wife's fatigue from endless braking. The simplest solution offered was related to brake pads and specifically the koolstop salmon. I have found them online and just want to check that these are indeed the correct ones for stock Long Haul Trucker brake hardware.

https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/KS-MTT...srs=2804552051

Hope the link works.

Some LHT frames were sold to be built up by others later. Also, LHT were built since about 2007 or so as complete bikes and had many changes over the years until about 2020 or so. Photo of brakes, front and rear would be useful, or year of production, or both would be helpful. LHT brakes started out as Tektro Oryx cantilever, then Tektro CR720 cantilever, after that I do not know what they used.

I have bought only the replacement rubber blocks to put into the brake shoe holders, I have not bought any complete brake pads like the ones you cite. My brakes look like or similar to these with metal brake pad holders. The ones in the photo are completely worn out, that is why there is so little rubber left.

https://cimg9.ibsrv.net/gimg/bikefor...d7d5d0a6b1.jpg

I think that the Amazon link you have would be for the correct brake parts, but lets see if others concur with my opinion before you order. Perhaps some of the later brakes that they used would need different pads?

If yours have the metal brake pad holders similar to mine, do not discard them. They might be useful later.

Those are the correct pads for the Surly LHT.

If you currently have cantilever brakes, you might also consider changing to V-brakes. I use the early 2000s XTR parallelogram ones on my touring bike but they are very expensive now on eBay.

If you do change from cantilever to v-brakes, you will need the below cable pull ratio adapter in addition to the brakes.

https://problemsolversbike.com/products/travel-agent

Knock offs also available on AliExpress in case you can't find the original locally in Japan.

If they are long and threaded these are the correct ones:
https://koolstop.com/products/v-type-2-holder-threaded
If they are unthreaded these are the correct ones to get:
https://koolstop.com/products/v2-holder-cantileve

I would say you got your use out of those pads : )

Sometimes when I let the pads get too thin I have trouble digging them out of the holder.

I was surprised how many 200 foot tall valleys I had to ride down an 8 percent grade with a sharp turn at the bottom of the valley on the Pacific Coast. I had one spare set of pads for one wheel in my spares bag, but instead I just kept inspecting them every couple days to see if they would last at least a couple more days.

Wet grit is what gets my pads the fastest. Hills not so bad alone if it's dry and the road is clean.

I'm finding v-brake inserts harder to buy on the road these days. Few bikes have rim brakes anymore and many shops only carry low end non-insert type pads intended for the cheapest bikes.

On my 2024 tour I had to buy some of these cheap pads and ended up carrying the holders in my tool bag. Two of the cheap pads are still on my bike now.

Anything to do with rim brakes, non-through axle wheels, 26 inch wheels, 36 spoke rims, etc., is getting harder to find these days.

A neighbor works as a mechanic in a large bike shop on a large university campus. He says they have a good stock of 27 inch tires and anything else needed for older bikes because so many bikes on campus are that old. If you live in a community with a college campus, a bike shop there might be the best place to buy older parts. I told him that I can't find the shift cables to fit my Huret downtube shift lever on my rando bike, the next day he gave me a couple cables from that era.

My tour this year was on a disc brake mountain bike, as it was an off road route. Hydraulic braking way easier on the hands, but I had some problems with pad rub which took time to sort out.

Hydraulic brake long term maintenance is not something I can do myself on the road; however it's gotten to the point where I think this is no longer an issue, even in developing countries. Likewise for thru-axle wheel replacement.