Brake blocks: heel in or toe in?

on-yer-bike

All the manuals say toe in but another cyclist told me heel in so that the back edge of the pad collects the muck before the rest of the pad touches the rim. Im trying to stop the brakes squealing on carbon rims and make the braking more progressive.

balthazar

Neither. Set them up squarely to the rim. They will wear into a toe-in pattern whether you like it or not - no need to hasten it and wear your blocks out sooner. There is no consequence for brake squeal, which has other causes.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/brake-squeal.html

nickwill

balthazar wrote:

Neither. Set them up squarely to the rim. They will wear into a toe-in pattern whether you like it or not - no need to hasten it and wear your blocks out sooner. There is no consequence for brake sqeal, which has other causes.

http://www.sheldonbrown.com/brandt/brake-squeal.html

Toe in has always been my solution to brake squeal. To me it also gives the brakes more 'feel'.

whyamihere

If you're setting them up heel in so that it collects the muck, the muck it collects is going to be pushed forward, under the main part of the pad, which is the opposite of what you want. Toe in or flat is right, I always just set them by squeezing the brake lever to hold the pad against the rim.

keef66

Toe in is good in theory, but in practice you'll soon wear off the leading edge so they are square to the rim again.

Heel in makes no sense at all; as mentioned above, that will collect the muck under the pad.

I just set mine up completely square.

rake

i set them vertically. no muck can get in

maddog 2

some brakes are worse than other (Vs and cantis = worse, DPS = less senstive)

The 'another cyclist' is talking rubbish though. To stop squeal the part of the pad nearest the front of the bike touches the rim first.