BRAKE PAD COMPOUNDS

For trail and enduro riding, most riders get the best result from Green s2032 or Blue s530, depending on how they brake. Green s2032 is the racing compound: a soft organic mix with Kevlar fibres and ceramic particles that gives the sharpest initial bite and silent braking — the choice if you brake late and hard on steep, technical descents. Blue s530 is built for heavier bikes and prolonged braking: it is fade resistant and stable at every temperature thanks to carbon and Kevlar fibres, so it suits long alpine descents, bike-park laps and e-MTBs. Many trail riders run Green at the front for bite and Blue at the rear for durability and control. If you want predictable all-round performance at the best value, Red s514 covers everyday trail riding with a consistent lever feel. Browse every compound in the bike brake pad collection.

Blue s530 is the compound we recommend for e-bikes, and Cargo s590 for cargo bikes. E-bikes are heavier and brake from higher speeds more often, so the pads need to resist fade and keep a stable friction level as temperatures climb; Blue s530 does exactly that with its carbon and Kevlar fibre mix and the metal and ceramic particles that add friction and wear resistance, giving extra-long pad life. Cargo s590 is based on Blue s530 but tailored for cargo applications: a copper-free formula engineered for heavy loads, with powerful stopping power, long-lasting performance that reduces how often you replace pads, and reliable behaviour in demanding city traffic, wet or dry. Both are organic compounds, so they stay gentle on rotors and quiet once bedded in. Find them under the Blue and Cargo options in the bike brake pad collection; every product page lists the exact brake systems each pad fits.

Sinter brake pads are organic. Despite the name, Sinter only makes organic, resin-bonded brake pads — there is occasionally confusion, so we like to be clear about it. Both organic and sintered (metallic) pads are made with a bonding process, but organic pads are built from fibres such as Kevlar, ceramics, clay minerals and carbon combined with resins, while sintered pads fuse metal powders under heat and pressure. The practical difference for a rider: organic pads have more feel and feedback at the lever, better modulation, very little noise when properly bedded in, and they wear rotors less. Because they conduct less heat into the caliper, the braking energy stays in the pad and rotor, which gives a more stable, predictable system. Each Sinter compound — Red s514, Green s2032, Blue s530 and Cargo s590 — is a different balance of those organic ingredients. Read more about why we make organic pads on the About Pads page.

Organic pads bond fibres — Kevlar, carbon, ceramics, clay minerals — with resin; sintered pads are metal powders fused under heat and pressure; semi-metallic pads sit in between, an organic matrix with a higher share of metal particles. Sintered pads tolerate extreme heat but transfer much more of it into the caliper and brake fluid, feel harsher at the lever, wear rotors faster and can be noisy. Organic pads keep more of the braking energy in the pad and rotor, so the system runs cooler and more predictably, with greater modulation and a quieter, more consistent feel; the trade-off is that a very soft organic mix can wear faster under abusive use, which is why Sinter tunes each compound's balance of lubricants and abrasives — Blue s530 and Cargo s590, for example, add metal and ceramic particles for wear and fade resistance without giving up the organic feel. Sinter makes organic pads only; see the friction material breakdown for the full ingredient list.

Yes — mixing compounds front and rear is how many of our suggested pairings work, because the front brake does most of the stopping while the rear is used for longer, gentler control. For gravity riding we pair Green s2032 front and rear for the fastest, sharpest bite, or Blue s530 front and rear for long days of secure, high-performance braking at the bike park. On road and gravel bikes, Green front / Blue rear gives aggressive front braking with the security of heavy, fade-free rear braking, while Blue / Blue suits riders who brake for longer periods with gentle modulation, also in tougher weather. For road racing, Green / Green is quiet and precise. Trail and XC riders use the same three options. Everyday riding — road, gravel, trail and urban — is well served by Red s514 front and rear, and cargo bikes by Cargo s590 at both ends. All pairings are in the bike collection; remember to bed new pads in before riding hard.

Every Sinter compound is tested on our in-house BTM-11 brake dynamometer, a machine developed with a local machine builder specifically for bicycle and scooter brake systems. A standard comparison runs 84 braking cycles, each made of 3 seconds of acceleration to 15.5 mph (25 km/h) and 7 seconds of deceleration, while the machine logs disc temperature and the friction coefficient for every cycle. Measured this way, Red s514 showed a 15% improvement over Shimano G03A pads and 29% over SwissStop 28c, Green s2032 36% over SRAM OEM pads and 41% over SwissStop 28rs, and Blue s530 27% over Shimano G03A and 44% over SwissStop 28E. Independent testing points the same way: ENDURO Mountainbike Magazine used the Sinter brake lab for its best-MTB-disc-brake group test and found shorter braking times, lower disc temperatures and more torque with Sinter Green than with OEM pads on every system tested. The BTM-11 is one of the machines described on the About Sinter page.