Shimano finned pads and ice-tec rotors

The Northern Monkey

Just wondering if anyone has these and what your thoughts are?

Got some SLX brakes with finned pads coming and have been told my disks are worn and could do with replacing.

Just not sure if the ice-tec rotors are worth the extra cash?

Or floating rotors for that matter..

benpinnick

No and No. Unless you intend to ride down mahoosive mountains.

The Northern Monkey

Well.. reasonably size mountains and I weight quite a bit lol

poah

not a huge price difference between RT-76 and RT-86 rotors if you shop around so for a small amount of outlay why not get them. will you notice any difference probably not but bling is bling.

you don't get floating rotors for cycles only semi-floating and they don't really do anything other than save a bit of weight, add some colour and bling. they also might not fit your calipers too.

cooldad

I think they're generally a bit heavier. Pointless.

rockmonkeysc

Tried a set in my Zee brakes when I raced at bike park wales for race day after using non finned shimano pads on practice day.
The fins made absolutely no difference and thats on a 3:40 run with some heavy braking from high speeds.
I wouldn't buy them again.

ricardo_smooth

I have the rotors, not the finned pads

The Northern Monkey

Cool, cheers for the feedback. The finned option was no more expensive so I figured why not!

supersonic

Only (slightly) useful if you normally boil a certain brake. I do use one on my Zaskar, I got it free and it is lighter than the standard XT rotor.

lawman

To really notice a difference I think you're gonna have to be doing some seriously long DH run's sort of 5+ minutes down a very steep or fast track with lots of braking. Given the rotors are only a few quid more than the standard Shimano rotors on CRC atm why not! Likewise the pad, not a huge fan of superstar and the Icetech's are a few quid more so why not, if they improve things once in their life time and save my bacon then that's a few quid extra well spent!!

Northwind

Even then, quality brakes have great heat capacity these days... Mostly when people have problems it's because they've either fitted something unsuitable, or it's poorly maintained.

I think Shimano are mostly aiming it at size reduction, it should make little rotors an option where they might not have been before.

I

DodgeT

When putting zee's on my session, I was going to also fit ice tech discs, but steered away from them due to reading quite a few reviews of them warping / failing. Ended up putting some superstar floaters on and they were fine with the zee's. Several runs of Fort Bill WC track didn't get any fading or overheating.
The "normal" avid discs which they replaced, would get noticeably hotter than the SS discs.

chrisrobs

I have finned pads on my xt brakes, ice tech rotor on the back and an old clarks on the front.

I cant notice the difference.

Penylope

POAH wrote:

not a huge price difference between RT-76 and RT-86 rotors if you shop around so for a small amount of outlay why not get them. will you notice any difference probably not but bling is bling.

I have ice tech discs and finned pads with XT brakes on my Blur and non finned pads with Hope floating discs with XT brakes on my Soul. absolutely no discernible difference when riding, but bling is bling! Seriously though, the price was right for the ice tech discs and finned pads so I got them, if they were a lot more than std I would not have bothered.

supersonic

You'll only notice a difference if you got bad heat fade before.

The Northern Monkey

Used to get it pretty bad with the Avids.. after 3 or 4 DH runs it felt pretty dead, lever would pull to the bars!

The Rookie

The Northern Monkey wrote:

Used to get it pretty bad with the Avids.. after 3 or 4 DH runs it felt pretty dead, lever would pull to the bars!

That's not fade, that is either poorly bled brakes with heated air pockets expanding or fluid boiling, but it's not fade (where the pad gets hotter than designed and the coefficient of friction drops significantly). With fade the lever pulls as normal but you get poor braking (just like with contaminated pads).