How do you bed in new brake pads?
Clean and degrease the disc, fit the new pads, then bed them in on a traffic-free stretch in three stages: 20 stops from 15 km/h, 10 harder stops from 25 km/h and two hard stops from 30 km/h, each time slowing to 5 km/h without locking the wheels. This transfers pad material onto the disc for full braking performance.
Sinter organic disc brake pads are a significant upgrade to your brake system. It is important they are installed and bedded-in correctly for optimal performance.
The bedding-in process prepares both the brake disc and pads to work together to slow you down. In essence the two components need to become more alike so your pads have more to work with than just some laser cut metal. When you bed-in your pads, you are moving some pad material over to the disc so that when you brake there is maximum contact of friction material. This then allows your system to work efficiently giving you better results.
- Take some time to clean and degrease your brake disc. Effective braking relies on the surfaces of your pads and discs working in harmony together. When you bed-in the new pads, material from the pad will be deposited on the disc so having a clean disc for this material to adhere to is critical.
- Install your new pads in line with the brake system manufacturer instructions taking care not to touch the pad compound. Simply hold the pads between your fingers using the backing plate or better still, use gloves.
- Be careful not to activate the brake lever without the wheel installed - if this happens you may need to push your pads and pistons back into the caliper with an appropriate tool.
- When you have re-installed your wheels it’s time to perform the bed-in process and for this we recommend a traffic free environment.
- Ride your bike at 15km/h or 10mph and activate your brakes 20 times but never locking up your wheels. Simply apply the brake to reduce speed to 5km/h, release the brake and carry on repeating that action.
- Then, increase your speed to 25km/h or 15mph and apply the brakes 10 times, this time harder. Again it’s important not to lock up your brakes. Reduce your speed each time you brake to 5km/h like before.
- Then ride 30km/h or 20mph and brake hard twice down to 5km/h.
- Your pads will now be bedded-in. This process is important to follow. If you don’t bed the pads in correctly you will not have full braking performance when you go ride.
