UKH

I've had both my front and back Tiagra level non-series brake calipers on my gravel bike replaced in the last year, after problems with both. Now I have nice shiny Tiagra calipers on. They came with ice tech technology pads with the smart little cooling fins on the top. I now need to replace the pads, I can get the bog standard old ones for about a fiver a pair, but the like for like replacements are going on twenty quid!

Considering for half the year much of my riding is through muddy slop on a canal tow path and temperatures ranging from just below freezing to high single figures, I can't imagine I'm really getting much advantage from the ice tech fins. Does anyone think they are a huge advance for cyclists in the soggy cool British isles or should I just get the cheapy ones that seem to work fine previously?

I have no evidence to back it up but I would say it's a gimic on a gravel bike. I have never noticed the brakes on my gravel bike to get anything more than warm so I can't see the need for additional cooling.

My guess is that the benefits of cooling fins start to be realised on bikes with large petrol engines. OK, I could be persuaded that they might be of use for alpine-scale descents, but for a domestic gravel bike I'd save the money. If you're riding through gritty mud etc you will go through brake pads fairly quickly.

When my original pads (with fins) needed replacing I replaced them with standard ones and haven't noticed a difference, even on some long alpine descents. 

On my e-mt bikes over the years, I’ve never felt the need for finned pads at my punter level. Using them on occasions say continuously on dropping a couple of hundred of metres altitude off hills nothing has ever been noted to suggest a need for finned pads.

My problem generally with wet and mud was high wear rates being in Scotland though.

A friend’s downhill specified mt bike doesn’t have finned brake pads and that is used at Glencoe/Nevis, etc. Riding a hired e-mt bike in the Dolomites,albeit a few years ago now, none of the hired bikes in the whole party had finned pads. Those bike take on a lot of fast descents.

I’ve no doubt they have their place, but not for general riding of most folk. I’ve always chosen pads that were of good quality, but not finned ones.

I replaced my pads a while ago (came with fins as standard) and the bike mechanic at the shop said cooling fins are pretty much useless if you don't do epic descents. 

Never bothered with finned pads, but I do prefer the Swissstop (yellow, RS) pads to the original Shimano ones (good braking, last well and silent). More expensive, but typically last a year on my gravel bike so not really an issue. They also come with a decent hex-head bolt instead of Shimano's flat head made of cheese (that I've had to drill out before).

I had this dilemma at the back end of last year and went for finned pads.  This was on the basis that it’s better to have it and not need it, than need it and not have it.

I’ve had brake fade, on my road bike, on a long descent in the Dales.  And also on my downhill bike, on a World Cup downhill course in the Alps (back in the day).  It’s not fun, so I would go for finned next time too.

Forget the fins; but give sintered a go in those mixed conditions.  And if you want more power, put a bigger rotar on  

The pad compound is more important than fins. Uberbike e-matrix are great all round, have tried loads of different ones.

I've got these on gravel road and trail bikes. 180mm rotors on trail, 160mm on the others, never had a problem with overheating on these pads, but if I did it would be a bigger rotor not finned pads

If you wanted just power then sintered pads are the way to go but will wear rotors quicker, but then if you're just using standard rotors then they're cheap enough

Unless you're doing big alpine descents, or needing to do real quick stops from high speed, then probably not worth it. Especially if you're buying £5 pads anyway, which probably don't have the best compound. I'd suggest what you are actually spending your money on is a better braking surface rather than cooling fins.

That said: I buy fancy Swiss stop pads even though I live in the flatest of flat parts of a very flat country. Can never have brakes which are too good IMO, cars love to right hook the bike lane (Europe) when you're in the middle of your 40+ kmh interval. No fins, and they sing in the alps!

Fins not required.  The compound makes a difference though in stopping power, mud resistance and squealiness. Try disko brakes.

Nope. Checked with their marketing  department -- The fins make you cycle 11.3% faster, the pads will brake cooler therefore last longer so the extra expense will actually save you money and you'll become more alpha and sexually attractive with bouncier hair. If you believe marketing hype of course. You HAVE to pay extra for fins.

Lot of good advice on this thread. Ditch the fins and look at sintered or endurance pads. Swissstop Endurance is my preference.

Second this-I've been well impressed with Uberbike pads, admittedly on an MTB and Magura calipers which isn't much help to the OP!

As an aside I've never quite understood why manufacturers go for the smallest possible rotors on road bikes (I mean in comparison to mountain bikes)- the bikes are lighter but most riders won't be and speeds are much higher. Surely the weight/aero savings can't be worth it?

As an aside I've never quite understood why manufacturers go for the smallest possible rotors on road bikes (I mean in comparison to mountain bikes)- the bikes are lighter but most riders won't be

Bear in mind they're selling them to people who like to imagine they're 60kg climbing wights, rather than the 90+kg heffalumps they are.

I would have thought the average weight profile of a road cyclist was similar to that of a climber.

And climbers buy loads of lightweight shiny stuff.

A bigger rotor would be dangerous overkill on a road bike. I had a touring bike which originally had cantilevers/Vs which I was never happy with as they were inadequate for alpine descents (some very scary moments descending the Tourmalet in a storm, as well as being pumped silly from squeezing the levers so hard) so I had a disc mount welded onto the back. Because the frame was never designed to have a disc, the smallest rotor I could fit was 180mm. It was great when I had four panniers, tent etc on it but it was terrifying when unladen as the slightest pressure on the rear brake would lock the wheel, it was like an on/off switch. 

That sounds more like poor quality brakes, or wrong pad choice than disc. Good quality hydraulics modulate well, and 180mm is reasonable depending on the load. As I said in my post above, 160mm for road and gravel with the appropriate pad compound gives the right balance of power, modulation and cooling. 

180 for me (70kg) on my (14kg) trail bike works well. Yes I can lock up any brake if I want to, but there's a lot of leeway before that point to control speed.

The setup wasn't the best (Avid BB7 cables and Campagnolo Ergos) but modulation wasn't that much of an issue, the Campagnolo levers pull less cable than others. My gravel bike has a small rotor (can't be arsed to check the size) on the back with Shimano levers (cable) and I don't have this problem. Possibly with good hydraulic discs it would have worked better, I've found Shimano XT brakes to be powerful but a bit binary whereas Hope brakes have tons of feel. 

Road bikes are incomparable with mountain bikes. My MTB has 180s (maybe bigger on the front, again CBA to check the size) but it's long, relatively heavy, very stable and has lots of rubber. Big discs on a road bike are unnecessary though I was aware of my discs getting very hot last year while caning it down the Superbagneres road. Maybe I needed fins

I agree with 65.  I think you can be overbraked on a road bike.

It’s easier and riskier to lock up on a road bike, if you’re not careful, even if your brakes have great modulation.  Road bike tyres tend to ‘break away’ with less notice than knobbly tyres do, especially when hitting wet patches, or when cars pull out in front of you.  

For reference, I’m running Ultegra R8000, with sintered pads (with fins). 

Of course you can be overbraked e.g 4 pots with sintered pads on 180mm rotors for road.

Why are you using sintered? I'd say that's overbraked for a road bike.

I had some Hayes mechanical disc brakes that were very on/off, great power no modulation with drop bar levers.

I found the Uberbike site last night and may well try their brakes on the recommendation of someone above, but was trying to get my head around the difference between their 4 different types, semi metallic (a quid cheaper than...), sintered, kevlar (which are in turn a quid cheaper than...), race matrix. 

Are sintered just best for being hard wearing? I think in the past I've mainly just used Shimano K03 - I think they are resin pads? Is that different from semi metallic? Or is that the same thing? But I have had some generic replacement 'no brand' ones (Decathlon, and another time an emergency quick buy off Amazon) and can't say I noticed any big difference, presumably they were resin too? - maybe they wear quicker but pads seem to last me pretty well anyway, so that's no biggy.

Personally I've found resin pads last about 5 minutes in wet conditions in the Peak. The grit just eats them. Perhaps I break too much. 

In general resin are the cheapest and wear quickest, but work well from cold and fine for light riders or with good brakes on normal roads. Kevlar, I'm not convinced are any better than resin. Semi metal are half way between sintered and resin, and can be a good inexpensive compromise. Sintered give good power and most durable but take a little to warm up and can be noisy, as well as wearing the disc quicker (not really an issue unless you're in to fancy expensive floating rotors). The race matrix (and similar ceramic for other brands) are more expensive but to my mind are worth it for the power, cooling, durability and quietness (as quiet as any non resin pads can be).

Or brake? 

Yes peak grit is hard on brakes, definitely not for resin pads

Currently a 20% off with UBER20

and no I don't work for them

Partly because it’s what I’ve used for many years on the mountain bikes and partly because I’m generally happy to rely on my ability to modulate.  This last perspective has nearly caught me out a couple of times over the winter.  

My bigger risk is that I run left hand rear brake on the road bike and right hand rear brake on my MTB (a throwback from BMX in the early 80’s).

The ones with fins I took off the other day were pretty shot, they had been on since May of last year, so had probably done about 2000 kms - not sure if that's a lot or not for those pads. In fact I don't don't know if they were resin or semi metallic either. 

I need to check the wear on my MTB brakes too, although I ride that a lot less than my gravel bike which I commute on about 3 times a week. But on the MTB I normally go into the Peak, whilst my gravel bike I tend to ride down away from the Peak - so not sure if mud and (in summer) gravel east of Chesterfield is that different from the same west of it? But perhaps as you move away from the grit it is less abrasive. 

It is only a quid more than the sintered, or two quid more than the semi metallic, so even if I buy a 4 pack it's not a huge difference. You reckon those are the ones to go for then?

Thanks to you and everyone else's advice!

My experience of sintered pads on e-mt bikes is not great. Noticeably longer to get full grip and far too noisy for the ones I’ve tried. Noisy as in really painfully high pitch squeals from cold, but better a bit once warmed up - never needed a bell to warn anyone nearby though when using sintered pads 🤣! Maybe I got the “wrong” makes. They had great staying power and overall stopping ability.

I generally run with resin as my preference accepting a higher wear rate, but do swap occasionally to semi metallic if I can bothered in known challenging wet and muddy conditions. I’ve have no reason to consider ceramic or such like for my riding.

Resin for me are more than good enough for my mt biking, are quieter running than semi metallic, and usually much cheaper to buy, and I can easily lock up the wheels on 200mm rotors then if I wanted using resin pads.  I always have used resin pads on my hybrid whether using it on or off road as well and as expected they last much longer than the resin pads on the e-mt bike.

This

Ah that makes sense, I've given myself a bad time in the wet with calipers on a road bike when I absent-mindedly locked the back wheel. I imagine overpowered discs will be exciting at least....

I suppose smaller rotor=more modulation and less chance of locking out completely. At least there's a bit more to it than pointlessly trying to shave off a few grams!

I've never heard of anyone going down a disc size

I've got Hayes mechanical disk brakes on my CX bike - and they are rubbish!

I've got a Shimano hydraulic upgrade sat in a box in the garage, if I ever find the time to fit them!

Which ones? Maybe just not set up correctly?

Hayes CX - I think it's just that the pads they came with are rubbish.