ive just destroyed both sets of v-brake pads on my bike in one days riding they were shimano m-system bog standard thingys. can any one recomend something thatll last a little longer in this lovely wet weather. and no body say buy disks cos i just cant afford them!!!!

Best thing to do is go down the line of the cartridge v brake system. To initially but the cartridge holders and pad will be about £15 but after that you can get a set of cartridge pads for about £4 per set. The best ones I have found are made by Astec, black are hard compound red are soft

........and stop braking so much ;o)



seriously though, the harder your pads, the worse your brakes will be in the wet and the quicker you'll wear out the braking surface on your rims.

I bought some WTB razer edge dual compound cartridge pads from Chain reaction Cycles on the strength of their description:
"Dual Compound - Abrasive compound on leading edge cleans and preps rim for positive contact by the Standard compound on trailing edge. Great for all seasons and all conditions."
So far I've been really pleased with them, they brake well in these winter conditions, last well and as they're not too abrasive so don't seem to be wearing the rim too much.

I found the Aztec black brake pads quite poor really, especially for the 8 squids i paid for tha pair! The WTBs are much better.

The best V-pads that I ever used were Ritchey Severe Conditions. They were red and made by Kool Stop. Kool Stop ones are good too, I expect they were the same! Aztec pads are rubbish, they wear your rims out before they do! Shimano pads aren't that great either. I've no experience of the WTB ones though.

thanx!! ill see wot my budget allows me to run to

I've found the kool-stop pads that came OEM with my Avid rim wrangler (1st version) were excellent. They still wore quite fast in the mud, but not so bad as shimano m-system. Basically, pads that work well in all conditions tend to wear fast in the mud. Those that don't wear so fast tend not to work so consistantly.

As Will says, pads that wear very slowly just eat your rims, which are more expensive to replace.

I think i'd go down the cartridge route and keep money aside to replace them fairly often.