Textured brake tracks

[alcatraz]

Well, you could be surprised by rain waking up on race day.

Still not a reason to jump on a disc brake bike is my point. I'd exhaust other options first.

I think people are annoyed with how expensive good wheels are and then you're "sanding" them down. If they were cheaper while still giving you reasonable longevity and brake bite it'd be another story. There wouldn't be much reason to have a separate training and racing wheelset.

[robertbb]

The noise is the least important problem. How about staying alive in the rain? How about saving valuable seconds during a race. How about getting a really good bite on carbon so your hands don't ache after descending for more than 300m. How about ventilating the brake track better and thus avoiding melting the rim? How about prologing the life of that rim brake frame you have with some top level braking, saving some big bucks putting off that disc brake purchase you've been thinking about?

Aren’t these the same reasons why majority of riders are hanging rim brake wheels on their wall and going to disc exclusively? Personally, I have been putting off disc brake purchase because Campagnolo Bora (non-AC3) wheels with Campagnolo brakes perform very well.

Concur.

[mpulsiv]

Well, you could be surprised by rain waking up on race day.

Still not a reason to jump on a disc brake bike is my point. I'd exhaust other options first.

I think people are annoyed with how expensive good wheels are and then you're "sanding" them down. If they were cheaper while still giving you reasonable longevity and brake bite it'd be another story. There wouldn't be much reason to have a separate training and racing wheelset.

Usually people check weather on a race day and have back up plan. The back up plan is good trustworthy alumumin wheels that have been around since 1903, the first TdF.
To me, any noise coming from a race machine is utterly annoying. This includes noise from textured brake tracks and rubbing pads against the rotor.

[alcatraz]

It's possible sure but the sacrifice of going carbon to alloy is too much for me.

The braking noise is only when actually braking. Not the end of the world for me.

I've been in a 2h race with 1h heavy downpour. Leaving the hotel you see dark clouds and dry roads. What do you do? Swap to alloy? Maybe the clouds will just pass by. Even with that downpour I got 1h of dry riding. I saved some time on the deep carbon wheels.

I wish I had textured brake tracks so I could stop thinking about it.

[Phill P]

I’m one of those who sees “0” benefit for a disc on a race bike that doesn’t see foul-weather. Textured brake track is looking for a solution that doesn’t exist. If wet braking is a concern, get budget training bike with disc.

Light weight riders aren't as concerned about disc brakes as those of us that are heavier. Some Pros will go disc, some will get pushed onto discs (less wheels for the team to stock), but I expect the real climbers will stay rim brakes. If it is a really wet day in the Alps during Le tour, nobody is descending fast as everyone is worried about grip to the road not braking power. The heavier sprinters might like knowing they have enough power and modulation though so there will be bikes in the pelleton with both.

We are still selling way more rim brake wheels than disc brake wheels, but I expect that will even up more over the years as people replace older bikes and go disc more often with their new bike.

Textured brake track doesn't *just* improve wet weather braking. It does help in the dry as well. Carbon wheel do not stop in the dry as well as Al rims.

Anyway back to my original post - seems nobody is having durability issues with the textured brake surface itself - but they are wearing out the soft pads quickly. Might be an idea that we start sending ppl two sets of pads so they can take the edges of the laser cut profiles without freaking out over initial pad wear.
We are trying different pad compounds as well. Had a customer use Shimano carbon specific pads and wore thru the laser cut thickness in one ride

[mpulsiv]

Textured brake track doesn't *just* improve wet weather braking. It does help in the dry as well. Carbon wheel do not stop in the dry as well as Al rims.

I haven't seen enough data to firmly believe manufacturers claims of textured brake track. As I mentioned earlier, Campagnolo Bora wheels with their red pads holds the candle. Campagnolo’s claims for AC3 (e.g. textured brake track) up to 43% increase in braking performance over previous models (e.g. 3Diamant). Let's take a look at real world results.

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/08/campagn ... set-review
"Comparison of braking distances for 3Diamant and AC3. One wheelset with each type of brake track was mounted to a bike that was accelerated to 35km/hr in dry and wet (raining) conditions. At a designated point, the brakes were applied until the bike came to a standstill and the distance was measured. This test was performed four times for each wheelset under both conditions. The results are plotted as average. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean. ** A paired student’s t-test identified a statistically significant difference (p=0.003) for AC3 in wet conditions."
Let's jump to the conclusion "Under these conditions, AC3 provided a marginal, yet reproducible, reduction (0.56m, 3.3%) in the braking distance."
3.3% is far from 43% increase. Now this is in wet. In dry, non-textured actually performed better.

[TheKaiser]

Textured brake track doesn't *just* improve wet weather braking. It does help in the dry as well. Carbon wheel do not stop in the dry as well as Al rims.

I haven't seen enough data to firmly believe manufacturers claims of textured brake track. As I mentioned earlier, Campagnolo Bora wheels with their red pads holds the candle. Campagnolo’s claims for AC3 (e.g. textured brake track) up to 43% increase in braking performance over previous models (e.g. 3Diamant). Let's take a look at real world results.

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/08/campagn ... set-review
"Comparison of braking distances for 3Diamant and AC3. One wheelset with each type of brake track was mounted to a bike that was accelerated to 35km/hr in dry and wet (raining) conditions. At a designated point, the brakes were applied until the bike came to a standstill and the distance was measured. This test was performed four times for each wheelset under both conditions. The results are plotted as average. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean. ** A paired student’s t-test identified a statistically significant difference (p=0.003) for AC3 in wet conditions."
Let's jump to the conclusion "Under these conditions, AC3 provided a marginal, yet reproducible, reduction (0.56m, 3.3%) in the braking distance."
3.3% is far from 43% increase. Now this is in wet. In dry, non-textured actually performed better.

Thanks for posting that CT excerpt. I had either missed that article, or forgotten about it, so just went back and read it as well as the comments. In fairness to the article, I think he said that the advantage of smooth tracks in the dry did not reach statistical significance, whereas the advantage of textured in the wet did reach statistical significance. Either way though, textured vs. smooth generated dissapointingly small differences, especially considering Campagnolo's claims. The CT article does mention that Campy came back with an explaination about different test conditions, with Campy using a heavier rider and testing 40 - 10kph vs the Author testing 35 - 0kph so there may be a little more to the story, and perhaps textured might make a bigger difference at higher loads or with initial bite vs. extended braking, but but a 10x difference in results seems pretty extreme. I also wonder if Campy might have been using some different metric vs real world stopping distances as CT did. I've seen brake lab tests where they measure the absolute power the brake can generate on a dyno. I could imagine that providing different results than a real world test like CT did which adds in how useable the power is to that particular rider on those particular road conditions.

[kode54]

when the gen 2 brake surfaced rims first came out, Enve included 2 complete sets of black pads. When new, the brake noise bothered me, to the point where I was about to return them. Enve told me that the first set of pads will bed in the surface and the second set will last longer. I still couldn't quite get the noise under control..and in doing so, I put the gray pads in...which work great and were much less noisier. maybe due to the pad compound since its softer. BTW, I have smooth brake tracks and textured Enve wheelsets on my bikes and have no issues running either pads.

Enve supplies 2 sets of brake pads. the first set wears out really fast and it will bed in and smooth out the rough surface. once you're on the second set of pads...it works very well and the noise lessens.

Can you expand on this? I have never heard of this before. Enve does supply two types of pads - black and grey. The grey is intended for the older smooth brake tracked rims and the harder black compound for the newer rims with the textured brake track. You are not supposed to mix and match.

[BdaGhisallo]

when the gen 2 brake surfaced rims first came out, Enve included 2 complete sets of black pads. When new, the brake noise bothered me, to the point where I was about to return them. Enve told me that the first set of pads will bed in the surface and the second set will last longer. I still couldn't quite get the noise under control..and in doing so, I put the gray pads in...which work great and were much less noisier. maybe due to the pad compound since its softer. BTW, I have smooth brake tracks and textured Enve wheelsets on my bikes and have no issues running either pads.

Enve supplies 2 sets of brake pads. the first set wears out really fast and it will bed in and smooth out the rough surface. once you're on the second set of pads...it works very well and the noise lessens.

Can you expand on this? I have never heard of this before. Enve does supply two types of pads - black and grey. The grey is intended for the older smooth brake tracked rims and the harder black compound for the newer rims with the textured brake track. You are not supposed to mix and match.

Interesting. I never got more than four pads with any set of Enve rims that I bought.

[izza]

I’ve been lucky enough to have gen 1 then gen 2 Enve’s and the screeching was annoying.

Further issues arose when I took them to the alps. The greater the braking the greater the heat released. Envelope changed the texture and used softer pads without changing their carbon/resin mix. This led to delamination for me in the alps. The screeching would change frequency as the wheel got hotter.

Have switched to Bontrager now and have had no heat issues. The only noise I get now is when I don’t clean the pads for several weeks.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[mpulsiv]

Textured brake track doesn't *just* improve wet weather braking. It does help in the dry as well. Carbon wheel do not stop in the dry as well as Al rims.

I haven't seen enough data to firmly believe manufacturers claims of textured brake track. As I mentioned earlier, Campagnolo Bora wheels with their red pads holds the candle. Campagnolo’s claims for AC3 (e.g. textured brake track) up to 43% increase in braking performance over previous models (e.g. 3Diamant). Let's take a look at real world results.

https://cyclingtips.com/2017/08/campagn ... set-review
"Comparison of braking distances for 3Diamant and AC3. One wheelset with each type of brake track was mounted to a bike that was accelerated to 35km/hr in dry and wet (raining) conditions. At a designated point, the brakes were applied until the bike came to a standstill and the distance was measured. This test was performed four times for each wheelset under both conditions. The results are plotted as average. Error bars represent the standard error of the mean. ** A paired student’s t-test identified a statistically significant difference (p=0.003) for AC3 in wet conditions."
Let's jump to the conclusion "Under these conditions, AC3 provided a marginal, yet reproducible, reduction (0.56m, 3.3%) in the braking distance."
3.3% is far from 43% increase. Now this is in wet. In dry, non-textured actually performed better.

Thanks for posting that CT excerpt. I had either missed that article, or forgotten about it, so just went back and read it as well as the comments. In fairness to the article, I think he said that the advantage of smooth tracks in the dry did not reach statistical significance, whereas the advantage of textured in the wet did reach statistical significance. Either way though, textured vs. smooth generated dissapointingly small differences, especially considering Campagnolo's claims. The CT article does mention that Campy came back with an explaination about different test conditions, with Campy using a heavier rider and testing 40 - 10kph vs the Author testing 35 - 0kph so there may be a little more to the story, and perhaps textured might make a bigger difference at higher loads or with initial bite vs. extended braking, but but a 10x difference in results seems pretty extreme. I also wonder if Campy might have been using some different metric vs real world stopping distances as CT did. I've seen brake lab tests where they measure the absolute power the brake can generate on a dyno. I could imagine that providing different results than a real world test like CT did which adds in how useable the power is to that particular rider on those particular road conditions.

Textured brake pad may perform much better with XYZ brand wheels. Campagnolo 3Diamant (non-textured) brake track perform exceptionally well under any condition, period. It’s that good.

[TheKaiser]

Textured brake pad may perform much better with XYZ brand wheels. Campagnolo 3Diamant (non-textured) brake track perform exceptionally well under any condition, period. It’s that good.

You know, that is a very good point. 3Diamant is not necessarily representitive of other typical smooth brake tracks. They use a special weave carbon ply and then machine off the resin so the pads are interacting directly with the fiber. They claimed that is substantially better than your typical rim where you are braking on resin. Long story short, a rim with normal resin surfaced tracks might display a greater delta when compared to a new textured track model, whereas Campy's may have already been pretty good to begin with, leading to the minimal improvment seen by CT.

[Calnago]

That’s true, I have Pre 2015 Boras, 2015+ Boras (3Diamante), and the current AC3 model. The 2015+ version simply seems to have more resin removed from the brake track than the pre 2015 version, and the current AC3 version seems to just have even more of that resin removed. But unlike a lot of textured brake tracks or some where there’s just a noticeable “strip” of texture glued on, the brake track still seems to be an integral part of the rim, simply having some resin removed. I actually prefer the 3Diamant version because it’s quieter than the the AC3 track with a very nice pleasant sound while braking. Whereas the new AC3 track has a more abrasive sound. But regardless they are both very good in the wet, and truthfully I tend not to venture out for a ride if it’s pouring rain out these days. Just isn’t very fun. But if I get caught in the rain, these are still just fine. Very happy with their performance in all conditions. In really crappy weather it pays to be cautious, regardless of your braking system. Just know the limitations of whatever setup you’re running. But regardless of the conditions, I’ve still not been able to wear through a set.