Brakes Improving braking when wet?

[Caustic Fox]

I want to know if there is a way to improve the brake efficiency when on wet pavement. When my rims and brake pads are moderately wet, they take a while to reduce speed. Slamming on the front brakes, they will vibrate on the last couple of feet. My rear brakes can't even lock up my wheel, but have no problem when dry.

What do I have to do (besides cleaning my bike first)?

Thanks.

 

[skjjoe]

kind of pricey but http://store.icyclesusa.com/shared/...=795890450&ProductID=1208&Target=products.asp

 

[fetor56]

Try replacing your brake pads with something that's more universal to wet & dry conditions.

 

[Esteban]

" Kool Stop Salmon pads " help a lot. If you have steel rims, they are going to be harder to stop when wet. Wipe the rims down daily, with alcohol on a rag .

 

[Fabian]

I am sure there are rim style brake pads that will help your wet weather braking but at the end of the day, the only way to have brakes you can rely on are to install a set of disk brakes.

Good on value are the Avid BB7 mechanical disk brake setup.
Even my bottom of the barrel, junkyard Tektro 160mm disk brakes work surprisingly well in the wet.

One day i happened to be travelling home and the sky opened up - it was a torrential downpour and i was totally soaking wet withing about 30 seconds.
Regardless of how much water was splashing about, the disk brakes still worked perfectly.

A set of rim brakes would have been completely useless.

There are conversion kits allowing disk brakes to be fitted to bikes that don't have mounting holes/lugs to accept the calipers.

Fabian

 

[Mountainman]

I will admit
after riding with disk
it would be hard to go back

things are ding dong dang amazing !!!!!

 

[johnrobholmes]

You could try a rim grind. I grind my trials bike rims for better brakes. You won't want more than just a good scuffing, some 80 grit sandpaper will work.

 

[loquin]

Also, if the brakes can lock up the wheel when dry, you may want to run slick tires. Slicks give the best grip on pavement, dry or wet.

 

[Mike Hunt]

sometimes if my tires are wet the brakes squeal when applied and stopping distance is increased ill apply brakes lightly while moving forward for a few seconds and it cleans off some of the water sort of like a squeegee and then the brakes dont squeal and i can stop properly