The other day I built my personal front wheel with an RR411 rim,
↑this is the Campagnolo Neutron Ultra front wheel
I'd been using up until then
which I converted from internal nipple spec to universal nipple spec and
rebuilt with rainbow-colored nipples.
Like the "white socks from the dyer," the brake zone is seriously worn.
If I have planned rides and time, I'll ride out in nearly full protection rain or shine
（except in winter since the cold rain is brutal）,
so I keep Kool-Stop's blue shoes, the BXP, which work well even in rain, installed permanently,
and the decisive factor is that I only use the front brake,
so the front rim wears out quickly.
The BXP has noticeably less loss of braking power in wet conditions,
but the shoes are hard enough to work as non-original shoes for the Shamal Mille and Racing Zero Night,
and also Mavic's Exalith, so consequently the aggressiveness toward the rim is high.
I have spare front rim stock for the Neutron Ultra.
I had the last one in Campagnolo headquarters sent over.
It's not that processing the rim holes is a hassle...
but I'm not ready to rebuild this wheel yet for other reasons,
so I had a front wheel with a brake zone that's Oxic,
the old model DT PR1400 from before it became Exalith knock-off,
come in at a special price, and I stocked it,
but it sold, so I built a front wheel with the RR411 rim.
By the way, even if I'd bought this front wheel for myself,
I was planning to rebuild it with silver CX Sprint Straight spokes anyway.
↑these are the brake shoes I was using last
on the Neutron front wheel.
The manufacturer is Kool-Stop,
an American brake shoe veteran.
This color compound
is called "salmon" by the company,
and supposedly works well in the rain while being gentle on rims,
but such a combination is basically impossible,
so the former is somewhat true, the latter is pretty much a lie.
When you take a brand-new brake shoe by itself
and bend it gently without snapping it,
you can figure out the shoe's characteristics pretty well from the hardness,
and the salmon is on the harder side.
Even all-black rubber shoes vary in hardness,
but salmon is harder than the harder black shoes.
According to Kool-Stop's manufacturer website explanation,
the salmon compound is
"one of the most aggressive compounds for handling
harsh wet conditions," and it clearly says
aggressive. I'm also curious about the phrasing "one of the most,"
but I'll write about that later.
In contrast, the black rubber shoes that Kool-Stop also makes
are described as
"our standard compound that works in all weather conditions,
but is designed for riding in dry conditions,"
basically saying it can be used in rain but is meant for sunny days.
This is the left shoe, but it's hardly picked up any metal debris.
It's a characteristic of the shoe, so it's not bad per se,
but Shimano's R55C4 shoes pick up metal debris like chocolate chip cookies.
The black streak running slightly above the middle of this salmon shoe
has a hole that's a trace of when metal debris was caught
near the rear end（on the left side in the image）,
and when particles were once embedded here,
they created a black streak running forward.
The right shoe also has a black streak toward the bottom,
and there's faint metal debris embedded in the darkest part of the streak,
but overall there's hardly any metal debris visible.
This is a phenomenon unique to harder shoes.
Since I'm the type who rides regardless of rain,
considering that, this scarcity of metal debris is remarkable.
↑these are Kool-Stop's BXP shoes for Campagnolo.
This year I built a disc road bike,
partly to address the situation of "touching disc roads at work without owning one,"
but its purpose is for wet-weather riding.
So aside from being caught in rain while out,
I've decided not to use rim brake bikes going forward in situations where it's raining from the start.
This means going forward, I won't need to use
brake shoes with high rim aggressiveness designed for wet riding on rim brake bikes.
Even with hard shoes and wet riding,
the Neutron rim lasted about 10 years, so
with Campagnolo's original shoes or Kool-Stop's black shoes
plus the policy of not riding in the rain except for unavoidable circumstances,
they should work as a lifetime investment
（excluding external factors like accidents）.
But since I still have plenty of hard shoe stock,
I decided to build a front wheel for consuming hard shoes on a rim
that's not as precious as the Neutron.
The RR411 has actually become a hard-to-find rim,
but since it can be relocated with the Noma Lab Wheel No. 5 rim,
as a rim for the "urchin state" of just hub and spokes,
there are other things being supplied.
↑this is Kool-Stop's
Triple Compound I bought
at the same time as the salmon shoes.
They trademarked the phrase "gentle on rims" and all,
but from my personal take, the rim aggressiveness of the salmon shoe is
only slightly better than the BXP,
and clearly worse on rims than the black shoe.
But changing perspective,
maybe it's not a lie either.
For users who neglect brake shoe maintenance（digging out metal debris）,
it's possible that hard shoes that barely pick up debris
could actually do less rim damage than
black shoes that pick up debris like crazy.
The Triple Compound consists of
grey / salmon / black.
In the upper image, the upper shoe
has grey on the left side of the image,
but the lower shoe is oriented the other way
and packed in a blister pack.
Pretty careless there.
Separately from this, Kool-Stop also makes
a Dual Compound shoe, but
of the three tooth-like brake shoe blocks,
one is black and the other two are salmon,
and when the shoe is installed correctly,
black faces forward.
"The softer compound goes to the front side."
According to Kool-Stop's manufacturer website explanation,
the Triple Compound is
"the most aggressive compound that achieves
excellent braking in all weather conditions."
The packaging had them alternating,
but I could identify the orientation from the shape of the part touching the rim,
and when I checked the compound order,
as I thought, it was black / salmon / grey from front to back.
That means the grey compound is
even more aggressive than the salmon,
which they position as one of the most aggressive compounds.
And a salmon / grey dual compound or
grey-only compound doesn't exist
in Kool-Stop's road brake shoes.
I suspect this is because the rim aggressiveness is too high.
There is a grey compound called "Electric"
that comes only in E-bike exclusive V-brake shoe form,
and while I can't say for certain, that grey shoe and
the grey part of the Triple might be the same compound.
Based on the title and the flow of the story so far,
the plan was to test the Triple Compound
on a rim that wasn't precious,
but since I have lots of BXP, I went with BXP first.
↑this is the Campagnolo Neutron Ultra front wheel
I'd been using up until then
rebuilt with rainbow-colored nipples
Like the "white socks from the dyer," the brake zone is seriously worn.
If I have planned rides and time, I'll ride out in nearly full protection rain or shine
（except in winter since the cold rain is brutal）,
so I keep Kool-Stop's blue shoes, the BXP, which work well even in rain, installed permanently,
and the decisive factor is that I only use the front brake,
so the front rim wears out quickly.
The BXP has noticeably less loss of braking power in wet conditions,
but the shoes are hard enough to work as non-original shoes for the Shamal Mille and Racing Zero Night,
and also Mavic's Exalith, so consequently the aggressiveness toward the rim is high.
I have spare front rim stock for the Neutron Ultra.
I had the last one in Campagnolo headquarters sent over.
It's not that processing the rim holes is a hassle...
but I'm not ready to rebuild this wheel yet for other reasons,
so I had a front wheel with a brake zone that's Oxic,
the old model DT PR1400 from before it became Exalith knock-off,
come in at a special price, and I stocked it,
but it sold, so I built a front wheel with the RR411 rim.
By the way, even if I'd bought this front wheel for myself,
I was planning to rebuild it with silver CX Sprint Straight spokes anyway.
↑these are the brake shoes I was using last
on the Neutron front wheel.
The manufacturer is Kool-Stop,
an American brake shoe veteran.
This color compound
is called "salmon" by the company,
and supposedly works well in the rain while being gentle on rims,
but such a combination is basically impossible,
so the former is somewhat true, the latter is pretty much a lie.
When you take a brand-new brake shoe by itself
and bend it gently without snapping it,
you can figure out the shoe's characteristics pretty well from the hardness,
and the salmon is on the harder side.
Even all-black rubber shoes vary in hardness,
but salmon is harder than the harder black shoes.
According to Kool-Stop's manufacturer website explanation,
the salmon compound is
"one of the most aggressive compounds for handling
harsh wet conditions," and it clearly says
aggressive. I'm also curious about the phrasing "one of the most,"
but I'll write about that later.
In contrast, the black rubber shoes that Kool-Stop also makes
are described as
"our standard compound that works in all weather conditions,
but is designed for riding in dry conditions,"
basically saying it can be used in rain but is meant for sunny days.
This is the left shoe, but it's hardly picked up any metal debris.
It's a characteristic of the shoe, so it's not bad per se,
but Shimano's R55C4 shoes pick up metal debris like chocolate chip cookies.
The black streak running slightly above the middle of this salmon shoe
has a hole that's a trace of when metal debris was caught
near the rear end（on the left side in the image）,
and when particles were once embedded here,
they created a black streak running forward.
The right shoe also has a black streak toward the bottom,
and there's faint metal debris embedded in the darkest part of the streak,
but overall there's hardly any metal debris visible.
This is a phenomenon unique to harder shoes.
Since I'm the type who rides regardless of rain,
considering that, this scarcity of metal debris is remarkable.
↑these are Kool-Stop's BXP shoes for Campagnolo.
This year I built a disc road bike,
partly to address the situation of "touching disc roads at work without owning one,"
but its purpose is for wet-weather riding.
So aside from being caught in rain while out,
I've decided not to use rim brake bikes going forward in situations where it's raining from the start.
This means going forward, I won't need to use
brake shoes with high rim aggressiveness designed for wet riding on rim brake bikes.
Even with hard shoes and wet riding,
the Neutron rim lasted about 10 years, so
with Campagnolo's original shoes or Kool-Stop's black shoes
plus the policy of not riding in the rain except for unavoidable circumstances,
they should work as a lifetime investment
（excluding external factors like accidents）.
But since I still have plenty of hard shoe stock,
I decided to build a front wheel for consuming hard shoes on a rim
that's not as precious as the Neutron.
The RR411 has actually become a hard-to-find rim,
but since it can be relocated with the Noma Lab Wheel No. 5 rim,
as a rim for the "urchin state" of just hub and spokes,
there are other things being supplied.
↑this is Kool-Stop's
Triple Compound I bought
at the same time as the salmon shoes.
They trademarked the phrase "gentle on rims" and all,
but from my personal take, the rim aggressiveness of the salmon shoe is
only slightly better than the BXP,
and clearly worse on rims than the black shoe.
But changing perspective,
maybe it's not a lie either.
For users who neglect brake shoe maintenance（digging out metal debris）,
it's possible that hard shoes that barely pick up debris
could actually do less rim damage than
black shoes that pick up debris like crazy.
The Triple Compound consists of
grey / salmon / black.
In the upper image, the upper shoe
has grey on the left side of the image,
but the lower shoe is oriented the other way
and packed in a blister pack.
Pretty careless there.
Separately from this, Kool-Stop also makes
a Dual Compound shoe, but
of the three tooth-like brake shoe blocks,
one is black and the other two are salmon,
and when the shoe is installed correctly,
black faces forward.
"The softer compound goes to the front side."
According to Kool-Stop's manufacturer website explanation,
the Triple Compound is
"the most aggressive compound that achieves
excellent braking in all weather conditions."
The packaging had them alternating,
but I could identify the orientation from the shape of the part touching the rim,
and when I checked the compound order,
as I thought, it was black / salmon / grey from front to back.
That means the grey compound is
even more aggressive than the salmon,
which they position as one of the most aggressive compounds.
And a salmon / grey dual compound or
grey-only compound doesn't exist
in Kool-Stop's road brake shoes.
I suspect this is because the rim aggressiveness is too high.
There is a grey compound called "Electric"
that comes only in E-bike exclusive V-brake shoe form,
and while I can't say for certain, that grey shoe and
the grey part of the Triple might be the same compound.
Based on the title and the flow of the story so far,
the plan was to test the Triple Compound
on a rim that wasn't precious,
but since I have lots of BXP, I went with BXP first.