SkinGriz

Thanking cxwrench. Finally got around to getting koolstop pads for some dual pivot calipers. The Continentals.

They felt stickier and softer out of the package than what came with the Tektros.

They stop much better. Closes the performance gap to cantilevers quite a bit.

cxwrench

Sweet, glad they're working out for ya!

HillRider

Tektro makes decent rim brakes but their OEM pads are really substandard. Kool Stop replacements, as you discovered, make a huge improvement.

veganbikes

If it doesn't have Stop in the title it isn't a brake pad ; ) Swiss or Kool you are pretty much guaranteed to get good pads and with Kool Stop you can get all the odd ball stuff that doesn't exist anymore.

well biked

I met the founder of Kool Stop at Interbike several years ago, had a great visit with him. He developed that awesome salmon brake pad compound back in the '70's for Scott-Matthauser, and most agree that compound is pretty much the best rim brake pad compound ever (not for carbon rims, obviously).

79pmooney

Back when you could get Mafac pads new (not15 yo NOS!), they stopped. No Stop in the title but they did have a squeal though the whole song.

I rode down Alba Rd near Santa Cruz in a Pacific winter storm on the Mafac cantis on my brand new Peter Mooney. An inch of water running across the road in many places. Paved. A grade like Mt Washington in NH; half the distance. Half way down my hands were so cold and wet I had to go to two fingers (braking the whole time, much like Mt Washington because otherwise I wouldn't make the next corner). At the bottom, "these brakes work!"

And fun with that squeal - I used to be carless among Boston's famous drivers. When they pulled a fast one on me, I'd hit the front brake extra hard. Every head within a block would turn. I'd point to the car. Eyes followed my point. At about that time, the drive, having been awakened from his stupor, looks up. Sees everybody looking at him. Slinks away like a guilty cat. It was fun! (Riding sewups meant the rims were never 100% clean. I could trust my life to that squeal.)

Edit: Yes, KoolStop pads work. Near silent in the Mafacs and great stopping power. In rain, yes, the revolution or so to scrape the rim but after that, decent stopping power even on very steep grades.

veganbikes

Mafac is French for Stop...LOL

sweeks

"arrêter" is French for "stop". :-)

SoSmellyAir

Are these noticeably better than the stock Shimano R55C4 pads?

By noticeable, I mean can I tell a difference without taking a measurement? (For example, both a 64" table and a 60.2" table are measurably longer than a 60" table, but only the 64" table is noticeably longer than a 60" table.)

Lazyass

For the old style brake blocks I never had the Koolstop Conti's but I do have the Dia Compe Gray Matter pads and they're outstanding. They're really soft and do wear quick but a bag of four costs $6.99. I have Koolstop salmons on some newer 7600 brakes and the Dia Comp's are a softer compound.

https://www.amazon.com/Dia-Compe-Gre.../dp/B001CJZ2S8

hokiefyd 

Every Kool-Stop pad I've used (that replaced another brand) was quieter, smoother, and just plain more pleasant to use than the pad it replaced. I don't know if they stopped any shorter or not. But they were much nicer to use. My point is you very likely will notice an improvement, even if it's not a measurable reduction in braking distance.

himespau 

Is it just the pandemic-related supply chain issues or what, but I've been having a harder time finding salmon koolstops of late. Or maybe it's because I'm looking for salmon pads for campagnolo calipers, which I haven't done before and maybe were never made.

Crankycrank

They're a little scarce for now but can still be found. Try Ebay. kool-stop campagnolo super record 2011 brake pads salmon | eBay Seems to me Campy KS Salmons always seemed to be harder to find even in good times. Many places just didn't stock them for some reason.

himespau 

Thanks, guess I didn't search ebay hard enough. Figured my usual online bike parts sources would have them or they wouldn't exist.

veganbikes

Well sure if you use google translate but I used my heart

Trakhak

Not to spoil your joke, but:

MAFAC, or Manufacture Auvergnoise de Freins et Accessoires pour Cycles (Arveni Manufacturing Works for Bicycle Brakes and Accessories), was a French manufacturer of bicycle brakes and tool kits. MAFAC was founded in post-war France under the name "Securité", which changed to MAFAC in the Autumn of 1947.

sweeks

Heh... that's what I did. Try googling bicycle arrete pipi.

SoSmellyAir

What was this other brand? Shimano? Swiss Stop? (Those are about the only ones I know other than Kool Stop.)

I used "noticeable" to distinguish from "measurable" but I did not restrict measurable only to the measurement of braking distance; you could also measure braking noise or other parameters.

I was mainly asking to see what reason, if any, is there to get Kool Stop instead of the stock Shimano R55C4 pads?

Davet

The Kool Stop pads have better modulation, they feel more progressive and seem kind to the rims, they don't pick up little shards of aluminum like the Shimano pads do. They just feel all around better.

cxwrench

Kool Stop has been the go-to for as long as I can remember. Brake pads, especially KS, are cheap and definitely worth a try for pretty much everyone. I would never replace pads w/ Shimano. KS first choice, SS second.

SkinGriz

I don’t know. Never had Shimano dual pivots.

SkinGriz

Huh. At 7$ I guess not much lost if you don’t like them.
Other perspective could be to save time by sticking with one known commodity.

SkinGriz

#2 LA river.
I asked her on her first ride after switching the pads if the bike braked better. Emphatic yes as she was stopping at the stop sign.

SkinGriz

~20 years ago I saw a guy on a scooter give a push to a young woman riding a step through going around the Arc de Triomphe round about.

She was pretty and looked back at him with an amazing smile.

Probably one of my first realizations that adults can also have fun on bikes.

Only related cause it’s a French memory involving bikes.

hokiefyd 

In my case, several other brands. Usually OE style pads (either Tektro or Shimano). I've never used Swiss Stop pads. In one case, I was bringing an old Peugeot with MAFAC Racer brakes back to life. They didn't have the brake blocks when I got it -- just the brake calipers themselves. I first used inexpensive-but-new Altus CT91 smooth post cantilever pads. These worked. They weren't great, but they worked, and I had them on hand. I'd get squeal every now and again and they didn't seem to stop all that well, but they worked. I finally broke down and ordered a set of the KS smooth post pads in salmon and they totally transformed the brakes. I mean, completely. The pads feel soft, they feel like they have a firm grip on the rims, and as others said, they don't chew the rims up. They're just pleasant to use (and no noise).

I've also replaced a number of Tektro pads with KS in the past, all to great satisfaction, and all on linear pull brakes. These are the cases where I'm not sure KS gave me a measurable reducing in braking distance, but they just felt nicer to use (modulation, etc.).