Best brake block H Plus Son

gbr236

Hi

Relatively new H Plus Son rims 250 miles in and the black coating is wearing off.
Braking performance with standard force brakes is mediocre at best.
Should I change blocks for winter riding, and if so what to?
Thanks

TommyEss

Are you using rims without a machined braking surface? They will scuff up with any brake block, and will never give as sharp a braking performance as machined rims.

I normally stick to KoolStop pads on pretty much all my bikes - standard black for the majority, salmon on the winter bike. They have a few more mixed compounds available now - salmon is softest and probably kindest to your rims, but you're never going to get stellar braking with those rims (If my original assumption is correct)

ugo.santalucia

Please ignore the above comment, clearly Tommy has no experience of H plus Son rims.
H plus Son rims ARE MACHINED and then anodised. The black coat is cosmetic if you use brake pads and does wear off rapidly in winter. Braking is in line with other alloy rims, like Open PRO or Ambrosio. If your brakes don't perform well, I think the problem is in your brakes rather than your rims.
Check cable tension, clean your calipers, check pads alignment etc and if still unhappy then switch to a softer pad, like Swisstop green.
90+% of brake issues are due to poor installation

Wirral_paul

+1 to everything that Ugo said above ^^ (and who kindly built my wheels for me using H Plus Son rims). 8)

I use SwissStop BXP pads with a SRAM Force caliper and braking is excellent

marcusjb

Totally, machined finish. The anodising will wear away over the first few hundred km.

I have found braking performance very good on Archetypes with Swissstop Green in just about all conditions (I have only been running Archetypes since March, so they haven't seen snow yet, but plenty of rain, really lots of rain, how come I have ridden in so much rain after one of the hottest summers in years?).

TommyEss

ugo.santalucia wrote:

Please ignore the above comment, clearly Tommy has no experience of H plus Son rims.
H plus Son rims ARE MACHINED and then anodised. The black coat is cosmetic if you use brake pads and does wear off rapidly in winter. Braking is in line with other alloy rims, like Open PRO or Ambrosio. If your brakes don't perform well, I think the problem is in your brakes rather than your rims.
Check cable tension, clean your calipers, check pads alignment etc and if still unhappy then switch to a softer pad, like Swisstop green.
90+% of brake issues are due to poor installation

My bad - I had Velocity rims in my head (probably with the popularity of the H+ Son and Velocity rims in the fixed wheel community I assumed 2+2=5...!)

Everything I said about KoolStops still holds up though! Particularly the salmon colour, which are ~half the price of the SwissStops.

Coach H

TommyEss wrote:

the salmon colour, which are ~half the price of the SwissStops.[/quote]

No they are not. They look half the price but you get 2 in a pack of Koolstoops and 4 in a pack of SwissStops.
KoolStop Salmons for me year round. Good for braking, good for rim wear, it rains in summer
Haven't tried SwissStop Green but no reason why they shouldn't be as good based on reviews.

TommyEss

Didn't spot that - perhaps their marketing team should take a look at that - I can't be the only one to think that.

2/3rds then - 4 pads from KoolStop £15, 4 pads from SwissStop £22... :-) Might treat myself to the green SwissStops this year, but only if I splash out on the Vittoria Open Paves as well!

ratsbeyfus

You also get a fresh set of brake pad holder screws (with allen key tops rather than easily damaged Phillips) when you buy a set of Swisstop greens which is useful as their small size makes them very susceptible to damage. I use Swisstop greens with Archetype rims and have no problems.

cycleclinic

I use Aztec Road plus pads on my bikes and the braking is excellent except on carbon rims where I have started to use quite cheap Baradine pads but the braking is excellent.The Aztec's are similarly priced to the Koolstops.

Kools stops maybe more expensive but they are worth the money they are soft and will not wear the rims quickly at all.