Brake Upgrade

[TechMech]

I've just got a Secteur Elite and after coming from a Boardman Hybrid with disc brakes, I'm finding the brakes on the secteur a bit weak tbh.

Now I'm no light weight at 17st, but the brakes on the Secteur do not fill me with the confidence I used to have on the Boardman whilst descending.

What do you guys reckon? Change the brake blocks on the no name callipers to better ones (recommendations please) or fit a set of Shimano 105 brakes to match the rest of the 105 groupset already on the bike (would these actually be better?) or a combination of both? Or can anyone suggest something else?

Or maybe this is as good as rim brakes get?

 

[dhague]

Start simple & cheap: first of all, make sure the rims are clean & degreased. They may *look* clean, but it's amazing the difference a good degrease can make.
Next, try some other pads. Kool-stop salmons are highly regarded - I use their dual-compound pads on my Roubaix (same calipers as the Secteur, I believe).

Total spend so far: about £20 for pads.

Hope this helps,
Darren

 

[eldudino]

Hi Al. I've got a 105 brake on the back of my Specialized Allez and it's very good. I'd look for a good pair on ebay, it's nice to have everything matching (but maybe I'm just a bit OCD about these things...)

 

[MartinC]

Start simple & cheap: first of all, make sure the rims are clean & degreased. They may *look* clean, but it's amazing the difference a good degrease can make.
Next, try some other pads. Kool-stop salmons are highly regarded - I use their dual-compound pads on my Roubaix (same calipers as the Secteur, I believe).

Total spend so far: about £20 for pads.

Hope this helps,
Darren

+1

If neither of these work then the next step is changing the calipers. There are some poor unbranded ones fitted to entry level bikes. Anything above entry level from C or S will be fine, SRAM too. In my experience Tektro brakes are OK.

 

[redddraggon]

I find wobbly Shimano brake levers are sometimes the cause of poor braking - used to have Shimano on the commuter but since swapped to Campag with the same calipers - braking feels loads better now.

 

[SoloRider]

Do you get the Koolstop pads with shoes or do you buy them as refills?

How do you degrease a rim?

 

[Steve Austin]

baby wipes are good for cleaning bike rims. Its not necessarily about 'degreasing', just making sure there is no 'oily' residue on the rim

 

[SoloRider]

Must try that as my rim brakes never seem to work that well

 

[ASC1951]

Its not necessarily about 'degreasing', just making sure there is no 'oily' residue on the rim

Er...what is the difference between that and degreasing?

+1 for the baby wipes. They are soaked in alcohol, which is why they remove grease.

 

[Steve Austin]

Because if you use a 'degreaser' , some of them leave an 'oily' residue on the rim. A rustic example would be meths

 

[manalog]

OBE Pads, recently fitted a set of triple compounds and they are great. I beleive they are £3 a pair, IMHO they are comaparable to Koolstop Salmon in stopping power in wet and dry.