Reducing Break fade

johnheaton

What is the most effective way to make my breaks deal with heat better? I'm pushing myself on harder longer stuff and getting a noticeable fade and over heating at the moment.

Obviously learning to break less and more effectively... Im working on this but in the mean time what else can I try?

I'm going to re-bleed them with dot 5 (currently dot4)

Will increasing the rotor size help much? Currently 185 rear, 203 front.

And will putting goodridge hoses on help?

How important is calliper alignment? My rotors usually squeek a bit when wheeling the bike around.

And can breaks get damaged from over heating? ( Water was vaporising off them at fort bill other week, and the rotors glowing, so might i have fooked up the pistons or something)

(I'm using juicy'5s on a 6" all mountain type bike)

Thanks

nicklouse

you will NOT be using DOT5

DOT5.1 is what you can use.

caliper alignment is very important. good ridge hoses will make NO difference to fade.

sounds like you need to deglaze the pads or replace them.

and finally dont drag your brakes.

disc size sounds right.

ratty2k

Not sure about glowing discs either! I've changed colour of mine under prolonged heavy braking.... But glowing.... Nah!

johnheaton

not glowing red! but yes they changed colour.

johnheaton

De-glazing pads?

how do you do this?

Using a fine grade sandpaper or something?

Cheers

synchronicity

Get sintered metallic pads.

What sort of descents are you doing to experience this sort of fade?
With a similar 7"/8" setup I get very little brake fade even on 2km long 22% average slopes. Enough heat is generated on these descents to warp 8" or 9" rotors -they'll clang against the caliper as you look down and see them wobbling all over the place- but I never experience enough of what I'd call "brake fade" to make me lose confidence in my brakes. :?

How much do you weigh?

Anonymous

synchronicity wrote:

Get sintered metallic pads.

What sort of descents are you doing to experience this sort of fade?
With a similar 7"/8" setup I get very little brake fade even on 2km long 22% average slopes. Enough heat is generated on these descents to warp 8" or 9" rotors -they'll clang against the caliper as you look down and see them wobbling all over the place- but I never experience enough of what I'd call "brake fade" to make me lose confidence in my brakes. :?

How much do you weigh?

Whoa there. Sintered pads will overheat MUCH quicker than normal ones. :shock:

synchronicity

The thing is, in practise, organic pads deteriorate very rapidly at high temps when using smaller discs. You're likely to find that you've got no meat on the brake pads before the any fluid boils...

I'm not exactly sure what happens or why, but I've learned by past experience... maybe it's because they insulate the hear better than sintered pads, hence the actual pads themselves are way hotter.

dave_hill

nicklouse wrote:

and finally dont drag your brakes.

Couldn't agree more - learning how to brake properly will solve 99% of your problems.

Anonymous

dave_hill wrote:

nicklouse wrote:

and finally dont drag your brakes.

Couldn't agree more - learning how to brake properly will solve 99% of your problems.

You've said this many times, but it really depens on where you ride. Some places more or less necessitate dragging your brakes, or very heavy braking before corners.

ride_whenever

A2Z make a fluid bomb, basically a small chamber that fits inline with your brake hose and increases the fluid volume, so they take longer to heat up. Should help a fair bit.

nicklouse

but how many have you actually see in use?

dave_hill

yeehaamcgee wrote:

dave_hill wrote:

nicklouse wrote:

and finally dont drag your brakes.

Couldn't agree more - learning how to brake properly will solve 99% of your problems.

You've said this many times, but it really depens on where you ride. Some places more or less necessitate dragging your brakes, or very heavy braking before corners.

Not to the extent that it boils your brakes.

Perhaps you could give some examples? Over the past 20 years I've ridden in many places from the Lakes, the Peaks, North Yorkshire, South Pennines, Scotland, Wales, etc. etc.

During the parts of that period when I've used hydraulic disc brakes, I haven't experienced brake fade or boiling fluid. Any ideas why not (and don't say because I'm not riding fast enough)?

Anonymous

Perhaps you could give some examples? Over the past 20 years I've ridden in many places from the Lakes, the Peaks, North Yorkshire, South Pennines, Scotland, Wales, etc. etc.

sure.
firstly, and most commonly,
There's a hill on a 7 mile route country road loop I do a quick lap of in the evenings sometimes, near Port Dinorwig. It's about 30degrees. Steep enough to make cars stall occasionally. It has three straights about an 8th of a mile long, and two very tight hairpins that can't be taken at more than around 10mph. Furhtermore, because they're blind bends, you can't see if there's any traffic trying to come up (it's used as a local rat-run to avoid traffic), so it's a good idea to slow to a crawl. At the end, it joins a main road, so again, you have to come to an abrupt halt.
No only that, but the surface is broken and loose, so braking hard at the last moment doesn;t work.
Brakes will easily boil coming down that.

In the same village, on the other end, there's a 1/2mile hill which is possibbly the steepest road I have ever encountered, which again, ends abruptly at a main road junction.
Brakes will be dramatically faded, and occasionally pumped to uselessness when stopping at the junction.

In the forests at the edge of the quarry in Dinorwic, there are some near vertical trails where the miners used to walk up to the rock face.
here's a photo of a similar area, haven't got an exact one of the trail
Being on the side of a mountain, there is a very large drop, to one side, which would result in certain death if you were to go over.
The trail has many switchbacks on the way down, and also has some bends.
The trail surface is made of large rocks, almost like stairs, loosely piled, making coming to a sudden stop from high speed impossibble.
If you weren't dragging your brakes here, you would very quickly reach a speed at which you would simply not be able to decelerate from, so, again, dragging your brakes is the only option.

Again, in the same quarry, there are old inclines, where the quarry carts used to move along. They used to be almost like railway tracks, on which the carts would be hoisted up and down by large wire ropes.
If you ride down these, you have to control your speed, and dragging is the only real option again.

And, when riding stuff like this (see photo),well, need I say more?
I doubt very much that you've tried such things, and I admit I've only done it once as, frankly, it's sh*t your pants scary, but I was an idiot, so I had to have a go! that was on hope C2s as well, which became useless very soon after setting off on the descent. The only way I got down it was by carving off to ride horizontally across the face every now and again, then chickening out and sliding on my arse the rest of the way!
Also, the rocks are much, much, much bigger when you get there than I imagined they weould be.

Sine switching to Saint brakes, overheating is much less of a problem, but it still happens. In fact, the biggest problems with the saints is that the pads can get so hot they actually deteriorate, and seem to crumble away, oddly.
At leas ton the old C2s, when they overheated and pumped up, they would lock on, whereas open systems just become useless :shock:

Anyway, thare's some examples for now.

maximus69

thats nothing. the pavement is so steep outside my house i get brake fade everytime i go off the kerb. going to start using another route, cant afford to change the pads every year

johnsav

maximus69 wrote:

thats nothing. the pavement is so steep outside my house i get brake fade everytime i go off the kerb. going to start using another route, cant afford to change the pads every year

hahahahaha

synchronicity

What sized disc rotors are you using for that stuff yeehaamcgee?
If it's 6" or even 7", I'm not suprised your fluid is boiling.

There are equally steep streets here in Tenerife. Just came back from a ride today 400m descent in 1.9km) and the discs (8" front, 6" rear) looked purple. In fact not just the adapters, but the fork's post mounts were hot to the touch:!: But still I had plenty of braking power available... like I say, I worry more about the discs failing than I do the fluid boiling.

Are you sure that's 30° and not 30% mate?
Do you realise that a 40% gradient is "only" equivalent to 21.8°?
30° = a slope of 1 in 1.732 = 57.7% gradient. :roll:

yeehaamcgee wrote:

In fact, the biggest problems with the saints is that the pads can get so hot they actually deteriorate, and seem to crumble away, oddly.

That's why I used sintered pads. They transfer heat out of the padz and everywhere else (fluids included) but AWAY from the disc. I'm sure people confuse "true brake fade" [due to brake fluid boiling] with "pads glazing over".

Anonymous

I run 203mm front, and 180 rear rotors. And yes, I reckon that hill is about 30degrees (NOT 30%)

a 45degree slope is equal to a 50% gradient, no?

I'll get a picture on monday, hoopefully, I've got this wedding thing tomorrow, hangover on Sunday, so hopefully bike on Monday.

synchronicity

No, a 45 degree slope is equal to a 100% gradient.
100% gradient = 1 in 1. :idea:

I look forward to the picture of this hill... I'll come up with one too. (really)

Anonymous

Oh, I thougth 100% was vertical, and 0% was flat. My mistake.

Anyway, looking at this, seeing as I don;t have a real protactor to hand, then yeah, it's definitely a 30 degree hil, if not more. there's some bloody stupid hills round here, where, I think, people used to walk as shortcuts, then over time became roads.

supersonic

Sheffield is bloody steep. We have a 91 degree hill, its a good 'un! ;-)

This is my favourite, the Whalejaw, just to the side of Wharncliffe:



About 2km of 1in7 to 1in5 hill, get some silly speeds up!

supersonic

Brake fade though is either the boiling of fluids in the line, or reduction of friction on the pads. This can occur as the pads heat, reducing friction.