If I'm going to Hell, my punishment will be listening to improperly maintained, noisy bikes for eternity. Breaking in this carbon wheelset was a scared-straight visit to Hell: no matter what I did, I couldn't silence the squealing brakes. I sanded the brake pads (they build up a glaze), I meticulously cleaned the brake track with alcohol and acetone, and I even tried riding the brakes thinking it was only a matter of breaking-in the new rim's brake track. Nothing. The brakes were screeching loud enough to make neighborhood dogs howl. I concluded: this is the difference between a $200 Chinese carbon rim and a $800 Enve or Zipp rim.
As I was about to throw down some mad cash on different brake pads--a last attempt before writing off the wheelset--I researched the squealing carbon rim problem. There are three prevailing opinions: 1) it's a problem with cheaper rims; 2) it's problem with certain rim/pad combinations; and 3) it's a problem related to improper pad toe-in. I had assumed #1 and #2, but hadn't considered #3.
So I toed in my yellow Swiss Stop pads on my road bike. Now my braking is quiet.
Who knew? From cross racing I was familiar with the cursed cantilever tendencies to howl unless toed-in. I never thought the same technique would work for a road bike with carbon rims. Lesson learned.
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| Only the finest brake pads that 60 bucks can buy. |
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| That's some aggressive toe-in, son. |
