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Showerthought: a guy at the Indiana State Fair swapped my brake pads backward and it saved me a comeback
I used to be hard line about installing pads with the arrow pointing forward on every single bike, no exceptions, and I would argue with anyone who did it different. Then two summers ago at the Indiana State Fair I watched a guy flip a set of pads on a rental cruiser because the rider dragged their rear brake down every hill on the midway loop, and he said the swapped pad wore flat instead of cupping. I tried it on a few shop bikes that get heavy rear brake use, and sure enough I stopped seeing that weird angled wear after about 200 miles. I still run them normal on anything with discs or a front brake worth a darn, but for coaster brake cruisers and rentals I am not so sure anymore. Anyone here actually test pad direction wear on a trainer or is this just folklore passed down at every fair booth?
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sage_morgan756d ago
Wait, the guy flipped them so the arrow points backward? That seems like it would make the pad scoop instead of shed, and I would bet money on faster wear, not less. I have seen that cupped wear you are talking about on rental cruisers, that weird angled edge that looks like someone took a bite out of the pad. But flipping them on the backing plate means the pad material is leading with a sharp edge, and every bit of grit gets pushed under it instead of riding over. Unless the pad shape is different than I am picturing, that just sounds like trading one wear pattern for a worse one. Did you take a caliper to those pads after the 200 miles, or was it just eyeballing them at the stand?
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