I know the winter weather is super hard on brake pads. When I was a courier in Seattle the combination of grit attracting rain, steep hills, and constant stop and go were murder on not only the pads, but rim walls too. Probably not a concern for most commuters who upgrade before stuff wears out. But for you uber commuters make sure to watch your rim walls when the start wearing through. I've seen some nasty rim wall blowouts, luckily most were inside as the tires were being pumped up, but I had one on the road. Very freaky.
And for some of you who are going through brake pads quickly on a new bike I had the same problem with the stock techno pads on a few new sets of brakes. Most companies use pretty poor pads on their stock brakes and an upgrade to the appropriate Kool Stops should increase your performance and mileage.
Happy Braking and safe commuting.
-Marcus
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Non semper erit aestas.