I've got a newer bike with disc brakes and love how long the metallic pads last, which got me thinking: do they make metallic or ceramic rim brakes? All I could find online were ceramic pads specific for carbon rims. Would a metallic pad wear down the rim too much, requiring whole wheel replacement?
Posted Sep 13, 2023, 10:24 PM UTC
Yeah carbon doesn’t like hard, abrasive surfaces too much.
That’s why specific brake pads for carbon rims are very soft.
Rim wear,indeed. Also, rim pads last a lot longer than disc pads in my experience, so it's really not a problem that needs to be solved.
Hm, I have complete opposite experience. Rim pads wear quickly and worse, they glaze and get stuff embedded in them frequently.
they glaze and get stuff embedded in them frequently.
Both of those problems are solved by regular maintenance. Get a pick or make one and dig out the metal bits. Then hit them with a sanding block. Both are just a regular part maintaining a rim brake bike.
Mavic used to offer rims with ceramic-coated brake tracks but they were never very popular outside of cyclocross racing since they were more prone to damage (ceramic is brittle) and realistically the wear rate compared to ordinary rims wasn't significantly different for anyone not riding in mud routinely. And yes, a metalic brake pad would destroy a typical brake track very quickly - if you get even small shards of metal embedded in your rubber brake pads it doesn't take very long to wear grooves in your brake track.
Yup.
Seriously OP, even rubber pads grind away the rim.