I bought a lovely-but-cheap vintage 80’s Raleigh to fix up and pulled these bad boys off!
Curious about what they were meant to look like when made? A solid front of leather?
(Will be replacing these ofc, and most likely the steel rims too bc rain)
by callsuponmuses
4 Comments
Good chance there’s some asbestos in there.
You can still buy similar looking brake pads for use on steel rims. At least the ones I know of use strips of leather embedded in the center of the rubber brake pads. They’re made by Fibrax and called “Raincheaters”, because they’re supposed to offer better stopping power on chromed steel rims when the rims are wet (those rims are notorious for poor braking in the rain).
I just bought a set of the Fibrax pads recently for my late-80’s Dahon folder via mail order through SJS Cycles in the UK (see link below). Definitely an improvement over the plain old rubber brake pads I had on the bike. Still not fabulous for stopping those old steel rims in the rain, but a bit of an improvement.
https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/brake-blocks/fibrax-raincheater-35mm-brake-blocks-for-steel-rims/
Yeah, those are to make the best of a bad situation that is steel rims. The best solution is to ditch the steel rims for alloy and get regular brake blocks. Lighter, straighter, better stopping, stronger if double walled. There’s no upside to steel on rims.
ASBESTOS