brake pads for 38mm farsport clinchers

turbo1191

Hi folks. i was given a set of these for a present and not sure what brake pads are considered to be the best? any pointers?

thanks

trailflow

Wiggle Lifeline Blue Pads are great on my 38's. And only a fiver for a set of 4. They are made by Ashima.

iron-clover

Same as above- I got a budget pair of 38mm tubs just as winter was pulling in last year but got to use them on a couple of rides including a hillclimb (and obvious descent) as well as a test loop that ended in pouring rain with a sweeping traffic clogged descent.

I was pleasantly surprised- in the dry they're difficult to tell apart from the Alloy brakes, and in the wet they still have decent stopping power- certainly nowhere near as bad as the stories would suggest. They do wear pretty quickly- you would want a spare pair if going away for the weekend and doing a lot of descending, but at least it means they probably sacrificing themselves rather than the rim.

After the Lifeline you'll probably not see much better until you go for Swisstop which are around 5 times as expensive, although you *might* get a little more life out of them.

turbo1191

Cheers Guys. . Looks the the lifeline are the ones to go for.. @iron clover.. how did you find the rims when decending, I've heard some horror stories!

Anonymous

Fine with me in the slush/now in Sussex.

If you can't get the shimano ones at wiggle they have some identical ones at Planet X but are £6 for 4.

I can also very highly recommend the ones from amp hoops. Really excellent braking, but don't last very long at all (London riding).

pgmabley

We use reynolds cryoblue on my wife's set of 50mm farsport clinchers, they've been excellent wet and dry performance, hardly any noise and no rim wear.

Bar Shaker

I use Lifeline Blues with my Farsports 50s.

iron-clover

The rims didn't really give me real issues when descending generally- in the dry the braking was pretty much as good as the alloy wheels so didn't feel any need to do things differently.

The wet descent was a lot different- the braking power was reduced but not as much as I was expecting- you do still have a useful amount of brake force but it would be difficult to do an emergency stop on the wet descent, so in my case I took it at a much slower pace due to the unpredictable traffic queues that build up around a sweeping bend at the bottom. The water clears from the rim fairly quickly but I found you have to keep gentle brake pressure on to stop them becoming slick again.

But if the speed is controlled then they feel nice and predictable rather than with the chromed steel rims of old- they were downright dangerous when it got wet.