I recently had two days off, and on the first day I went to Shodoshima.
I'll write about what I noticed and what happened during that trip.
This is the parking lot at the summit of Kankakei.
Even though it's called the summit, it's not actually the highest elevation—
depending on the route, you descend about
100 meters in elevation after finishing the climb.
Broadly speaking, there are four routes:
the South Route (Blue Line) from Kusaki (Prefectural Route 29),
the East Route from Fukuda Port (Prefectural Route 246,
which merges with the Blue Line midway),
the North Route from Prefectural Route 31,
and the West Route from slightly north of Tonosho Port
(Prefectural Route 27 / Kankakei Skyline).
Since my route was in via Sakaide Port and out via Tonosho Port,
I couldn't store my luggage in coin lockers at the port,
so I carried a large Campagnolo backpack
the whole time.
The route names I mentioned earlier aren't official—
I'm just calling them that myself,
but I went up Kankakei via the East Route
and came down the West Route.
The West Route, also known as the Kankakei Skyline,
has steep gradients with sections where speed builds up easily, and
since I didn't have time to take photos,
this is a citation from Google Maps,
but runaway truck ramps like this are installed here.
They're made of sand and earth on an incline to help vehicles
with failed brakes stop, but the road surface is shaped
in a wave pattern, so if a vehicle actually enters one at the necessary speed,
it could destroy the vehicle.
With modern cars' improved braking performance,
this equipment is pretty much unnecessary now.
A while back, I rode up a place called Senbayama
from the Aridagawa in Wakayama,
climbing a series of switchbacks.
It's also called Wakayama's Alpe d'Huez,
but on the way back, instead of taking the same road,
I went to the summit of Senbayama
(a place with nothing but a small gazebo)
and then went to the summit of Washigamine,
then descended the old road which had rough pavement and was narrow.
During this descent, my front brake started to fade,
and the braking force dropped dramatically.
Terrified by this, I even considered whether road bikes
might actually need rear brakes after all—
I seriously contemplated changing my philosophy.
The disc rotor had turned a copper color,
and judging from the color, the surface temperature
must have exceeded 200°C.
When I checked the data later, the descent gradient
averaged -13% and peaked at -21%.
After fade occurred once,
the piston didn't return cleanly,
and from that point on at both Senbayama and Kankakei,
the brake pads started rubbing continuously against the disc rotor
with a scrubbing sound.
For Shodoshima the next day, I rode just over 200km,
and it rubbed the whole time.
If I lift the front wheel and spin it by hand,
it stops after about one and a quarter rotations,
but when actually riding, it's barely noticeable except for the noise,
so I didn't fix it on the road.
↑This is SwissStop's 35E brake pad,
the current SRAM road version.
The number indicates the shape—
for example, for Shimano road pads it would be 34,
and for Campagnolo it would be 30.
The E means the backing plate is silver,
and there's also an RS version with a yellow backing plate.
According to Japanese distributors,
E is a resin-compound pad with high durability
that's also gentle on rotors
and produces low noise—but this is completely false.
First, the characteristic resin pad trait of sharp initial bite
called "initial bite" is completely absent.
Also, when the disc rotor is wet,
there's quite loud squealing.
SRAM calls resin pads "Organic"
and metal pads "Sintered,"
and they say not to use a rotor that's been used with sintered pads
with organic pads afterward.
I use the term "contaminated,"
and a rotor contaminated by sintered pads will produce
loud noise on wet days when used with organic pads—
quieter than sintered pad noise, but still loud.
SwissStop's E lacks the sharp initial bite sensation,
produces loud noise when the rotor is wet,
and I've confirmed it causes rotor contamination,
so in terms of characteristics it's a metal-class pad.
On top of that, it lacks the advantage of metal pads—
increased braking force when squeezing the lever deep—
and isn't as wear-resistant as metal pads either,
so SwissStop's E combines the worst traits
of both resin and metal pads.
So why am I using it? Because SRAM's
road pad inventory at Japan's sole distributor
was on long-term backorder,
and at that time I needed shop inventory for customer repairs,
so I looked for generic alternatives.
For some reason they weren't available from Ashima or PSB
(they exist but the distributor doesn't carry them?),
and the distributor had one SwissStop 35RS in stock
and I bought five 35E's.
Currently both SRAM and SwissStop stock is available at the distributor.
↑This is the 35E I removed after the day I used it at Senbayama.
The piston shape of the SRAM brake has burned an imprint
onto the backing plate, and the rear side,
which receives the heat from the disc rotor first,
is charred.
↑The bottom image is the pad charred at Kankakei.
The temperature was lower at Kankakei Skyline
than on the Senbayama old road.
And these pads show uneven wear.
When people hear "uneven wear," they probably imagine
the brake caliper being set at an angle to the rotor,
causing the front and rear wear areas to be reversed left-to-right,
but that's not what this is.
I've aligned the left and right brake pads.
The left side of the image isn't charred, so it's the brake front.
↑Kankakei pads
↑Senbayama pads
The rear side of both pads, which receives the brake heat first,
is worn on both left and right.
Since SRAM pads don't have left/right designation,
if the rear side still has decent material left,
would it be better to swap the pads left-to-right at some point?
In an earlier article about Crank Brothers (→here),
I wrote: "For road pedal fixed cleats, I only angle my right foot slightly,
but Crank Brothers pedals and their so-called 0° float cleats
have large play, so that's not necessary."
However, after changing from a plastic shim between the cleat and shoe
to a stainless steel ShoeShield,
I had to revise that assessment.
After switching to the ShoeShield,
I could clearly feel "the sensation of returning to the center
of the slight range of motion" (shown by the red line in the image above).
With the plastic shim, this sensation was vague,
so I thought as long as there was some subjective "straight" position
within the range of play, it was fine.
But after switching to the ShoeShield,
when I relax my foot (not my right foot, which I angle with the fixed cleat,
but my left foot), I can now feel
that my heel is tilted outward at the neutral position
of the play range.
This could be because my left foot is misaligned,
or because my left shoe's cleat is set straight but is actually angled slightly—
the latter is more likely
(I'm aware my right foot is misaligned),
but after adjusting the angle slightly inward in the heel direction,
the center of the play range now matches
the subjective "straight" position.
As I wrote before, ShoeShields really are essential.
After finishing the cleat setup,
I installed set screws only in the two rear holes of the pedal.
The original screws that came with the pedal were 5mm,
and separately available longer screws are 10mm,
but both are M4 socket set screws,
so I installed commercially available stainless steel ones
12mm long with a small amount of threadlocker applied.
In an earlier article I mentioned considering going all the way tight,
but even at 12mm there's a small gap in the threaded hole.
By adjusting this gap,
I achieved the same "self-proclaimed 0° float" feel
as fixed-cleat road pedals.
I bought the Crank Brothers cleat tool.
Once set on the shoe, it was convenient for preventing cleat rotation
and making fine front-to-back position adjustments,
but it doesn't prevent ShoeShield rotation,
so it wasn't particularly useful in that regard.
Next to the tool is a protrusion for measuring the height of the shoe's outsole
next to the cleat hole, with dots marked 1 through 4.
Ideally you'd measure right next to the cleat hole,
but since I already have the ShoeShield on,
I'm measuring slightly ahead of the cleat.
At dot 1 protrusion, there's a gap between the tool and the outsole.
At dot 2, the tool and outsole make contact.
At dot 3, there's a gap again—larger than dot 1.
You might think "wait, the results are reversed,"
and you'd be right to question it,
because the four protrusions aren't graduated in dot number order.
This breaks manufacturer etiquette to explain, but
the protrusion heights by my measurement are:
Dot 1: 7mm
Dot 2: 6.4mm
Dot 3: 7.6mm
Dot 4: 8.8mm
That's how they are.
Against these, there are correspondence tables for cleat shims
and traction pads, and listing those out gives:
For the Eggbeater, dot 3 is proper,
and for the Mallet E, dot 1 is proper
for direct cleat mounting.
When there's a gap between the outsole and the sole,
you adjust from either the pedal side (negative direction)
or shoe side (positive direction).
For the pedal-side adjustment through traction pad thickness,
↑you get this.
I was initially confused by this table because
with the Eggbeater, as you add traction pads
the dots decrease, but with the Mallet E it's the reverse,
and moreover the traction pad thickness seems wrong for the Eggbeater.
But this confusion stems from the tool's dots not being
graduated in increasing height with dot number.
So I'll swap dots 1 and 2 in the table:
↑Now it makes sense.
Also, a note I added: Candy and Mallet come with
a 1mm traction pad already installed.
Double Shot is a model with Mallet on one side
and a flat pedal on the other.
The Eggbeater has no traction pad initially,
so in the range of this table, traction pads of
0mm, 1mm, and 2mm are added going upward.
Eggbeater traction pads attach to the area shown above,
but only Eggbeater 1, the cheapest model, is incompatible.
Models 2, 3, and 11 support them.
And there are two Crank Brothers distributors in Japan—
one only stocks 1mm-thick traction pads,
and the other doesn't stock Eggbeater traction pads at all,
so there's no way to officially obtain the 2mm-thick
Eggbeater traction pads from authorized channels.
Finally, for shoe-side adjustment,
I've added notes about cleat shim shimming:
There's a mystery here too.
↑The plastic shims that came with the pedal
are shown at different angles in the image,
but it's unclear whether two shims can be stacked
when the spec calls for two shims.
Moreover, this shim is stocked at one of the previously mentioned distributors
as a 2-piece set for 250 yen (tax included),
but the other distributor doesn't carry it.
And separate from this shim,
↑Image from distributor
there's something called the MATCH ShoeShim,
which clearly can't be stacked based on its shape.
Black is 1mm thick, and the gray shown above is 1.5mm thick.
The Crank Brothers cleat tool is officially called
"Cleat Tool Gray V2," suggesting there's a version 1
that isn't gray, with the correspondence table
still reflecting V1... which might explain
some of these discrepancies.
For my shoe in this case,
though I didn't measure right at the cleat position,
the correct setting at dot 2 calls for
2mm traction pad.
Against that,
I'm using the original 1mm traction pad.
If I switched to 2mm, the friction would increase and reduce
the feel of returning to center that I get without the set screws,
but since I've achieved near-locked feel with the set screws,
it's probably best to think of the cleat tool as just a guideline.
There are unavailable combinations anyway, like 2mm pads for Eggbeaters.
I make lacquer paint matched as closely as possible
to my Niner frame color,
and I used it to paint a Catterham bell.
But as shown in the image above, when fully painted,
the sound quality becomes very poor,
so I repainted it, leaving the area around the Catterham logo unpainted
so the striker would hit there.
I'll write about what I noticed and what happened during that trip.
This is the parking lot at the summit of Kankakei.
Even though it's called the summit, it's not actually the highest elevation—
depending on the route, you descend about
100 meters in elevation after finishing the climb.
Broadly speaking, there are four routes:
the South Route (Blue Line) from Kusaki (Prefectural Route 29),
the East Route from Fukuda Port (Prefectural Route 246,
which merges with the Blue Line midway),
the North Route from Prefectural Route 31,
and the West Route from slightly north of Tonosho Port
(Prefectural Route 27 / Kankakei Skyline).
Since my route was in via Sakaide Port and out via Tonosho Port,
I couldn't store my luggage in coin lockers at the port,
so I carried a large Campagnolo backpack
the whole time.
The route names I mentioned earlier aren't official—
I'm just calling them that myself,
but I went up Kankakei via the East Route
and came down the West Route.
The West Route, also known as the Kankakei Skyline,
has steep gradients with sections where speed builds up easily, and
since I didn't have time to take photos,
this is a citation from Google Maps,
but runaway truck ramps like this are installed here.
They're made of sand and earth on an incline to help vehicles
with failed brakes stop, but the road surface is shaped
in a wave pattern, so if a vehicle actually enters one at the necessary speed,
it could destroy the vehicle.
With modern cars' improved braking performance,
this equipment is pretty much unnecessary now.
A while back, I rode up a place called Senbayama
from the Aridagawa in Wakayama,
climbing a series of switchbacks.
It's also called Wakayama's Alpe d'Huez,
but on the way back, instead of taking the same road,
I went to the summit of Senbayama
(a place with nothing but a small gazebo)
and then went to the summit of Washigamine,
then descended the old road which had rough pavement and was narrow.
During this descent, my front brake started to fade,
and the braking force dropped dramatically.
Terrified by this, I even considered whether road bikes
might actually need rear brakes after all—
I seriously contemplated changing my philosophy.
The disc rotor had turned a copper color,
and judging from the color, the surface temperature
must have exceeded 200°C.
When I checked the data later, the descent gradient
averaged -13% and peaked at -21%.
After fade occurred once,
the piston didn't return cleanly,
and from that point on at both Senbayama and Kankakei,
the brake pads started rubbing continuously against the disc rotor
with a scrubbing sound.
For Shodoshima the next day, I rode just over 200km,
and it rubbed the whole time.
If I lift the front wheel and spin it by hand,
it stops after about one and a quarter rotations,
but when actually riding, it's barely noticeable except for the noise,
so I didn't fix it on the road.
↑This is SwissStop's 35E brake pad,
the current SRAM road version.
The number indicates the shape—
for example, for Shimano road pads it would be 34,
and for Campagnolo it would be 30.
The E means the backing plate is silver,
and there's also an RS version with a yellow backing plate.
According to Japanese distributors,
E is a resin-compound pad with high durability
that's also gentle on rotors
and produces low noise—but this is completely false.
First, the characteristic resin pad trait of sharp initial bite
called "initial bite" is completely absent.
Also, when the disc rotor is wet,
there's quite loud squealing.
SRAM calls resin pads "Organic"
and metal pads "Sintered,"
and they say not to use a rotor that's been used with sintered pads
with organic pads afterward.
I use the term "contaminated,"
and a rotor contaminated by sintered pads will produce
loud noise on wet days when used with organic pads—
quieter than sintered pad noise, but still loud.
SwissStop's E lacks the sharp initial bite sensation,
produces loud noise when the rotor is wet,
and I've confirmed it causes rotor contamination,
so in terms of characteristics it's a metal-class pad.
On top of that, it lacks the advantage of metal pads—
increased braking force when squeezing the lever deep—
and isn't as wear-resistant as metal pads either,
so SwissStop's E combines the worst traits
of both resin and metal pads.
So why am I using it? Because SRAM's
road pad inventory at Japan's sole distributor
was on long-term backorder,
and at that time I needed shop inventory for customer repairs,
so I looked for generic alternatives.
For some reason they weren't available from Ashima or PSB
(they exist but the distributor doesn't carry them?),
and the distributor had one SwissStop 35RS in stock
and I bought five 35E's.
Currently both SRAM and SwissStop stock is available at the distributor.
↑This is the 35E I removed after the day I used it at Senbayama.
The piston shape of the SRAM brake has burned an imprint
onto the backing plate, and the rear side,
which receives the heat from the disc rotor first,
is charred.
↑The bottom image is the pad charred at Kankakei.
The temperature was lower at Kankakei Skyline
than on the Senbayama old road.
And these pads show uneven wear.
When people hear "uneven wear," they probably imagine
the brake caliper being set at an angle to the rotor,
causing the front and rear wear areas to be reversed left-to-right,
but that's not what this is.
I've aligned the left and right brake pads.
The left side of the image isn't charred, so it's the brake front.
↑Kankakei pads
↑Senbayama pads
The rear side of both pads, which receives the brake heat first,
is worn on both left and right.
Since SRAM pads don't have left/right designation,
if the rear side still has decent material left,
would it be better to swap the pads left-to-right at some point?
In an earlier article about Crank Brothers (→here),
I wrote: "For road pedal fixed cleats, I only angle my right foot slightly,
but Crank Brothers pedals and their so-called 0° float cleats
have large play, so that's not necessary."
However, after changing from a plastic shim between the cleat and shoe
to a stainless steel ShoeShield,
I had to revise that assessment.
After switching to the ShoeShield,
I could clearly feel "the sensation of returning to the center
of the slight range of motion" (shown by the red line in the image above).
With the plastic shim, this sensation was vague,
so I thought as long as there was some subjective "straight" position
within the range of play, it was fine.
But after switching to the ShoeShield,
when I relax my foot (not my right foot, which I angle with the fixed cleat,
but my left foot), I can now feel
that my heel is tilted outward at the neutral position
of the play range.
This could be because my left foot is misaligned,
or because my left shoe's cleat is set straight but is actually angled slightly—
the latter is more likely
(I'm aware my right foot is misaligned),
but after adjusting the angle slightly inward in the heel direction,
the center of the play range now matches
the subjective "straight" position.
As I wrote before, ShoeShields really are essential.
After finishing the cleat setup,
I installed set screws only in the two rear holes of the pedal.
The original screws that came with the pedal were 5mm,
and separately available longer screws are 10mm,
but both are M4 socket set screws,
so I installed commercially available stainless steel ones
12mm long with a small amount of threadlocker applied.
In an earlier article I mentioned considering going all the way tight,
but even at 12mm there's a small gap in the threaded hole.
By adjusting this gap,
I achieved the same "self-proclaimed 0° float" feel
as fixed-cleat road pedals.
I bought the Crank Brothers cleat tool.
Once set on the shoe, it was convenient for preventing cleat rotation
and making fine front-to-back position adjustments,
but it doesn't prevent ShoeShield rotation,
so it wasn't particularly useful in that regard.
Next to the tool is a protrusion for measuring the height of the shoe's outsole
next to the cleat hole, with dots marked 1 through 4.
Ideally you'd measure right next to the cleat hole,
but since I already have the ShoeShield on,
I'm measuring slightly ahead of the cleat.
At dot 1 protrusion, there's a gap between the tool and the outsole.
At dot 2, the tool and outsole make contact.
At dot 3, there's a gap again—larger than dot 1.
You might think "wait, the results are reversed,"
and you'd be right to question it,
because the four protrusions aren't graduated in dot number order.
This breaks manufacturer etiquette to explain, but
the protrusion heights by my measurement are:
Dot 1: 7mm
Dot 2: 6.4mm
Dot 3: 7.6mm
Dot 4: 8.8mm
That's how they are.
Against these, there are correspondence tables for cleat shims
and traction pads, and listing those out gives:
For the Eggbeater, dot 3 is proper,
and for the Mallet E, dot 1 is proper
for direct cleat mounting.
When there's a gap between the outsole and the sole,
you adjust from either the pedal side (negative direction)
or shoe side (positive direction).
For the pedal-side adjustment through traction pad thickness,
↑you get this.
I was initially confused by this table because
with the Eggbeater, as you add traction pads
the dots decrease, but with the Mallet E it's the reverse,
and moreover the traction pad thickness seems wrong for the Eggbeater.
But this confusion stems from the tool's dots not being
graduated in increasing height with dot number.
So I'll swap dots 1 and 2 in the table:
↑Now it makes sense.
Also, a note I added: Candy and Mallet come with
a 1mm traction pad already installed.
Double Shot is a model with Mallet on one side
and a flat pedal on the other.
The Eggbeater has no traction pad initially,
so in the range of this table, traction pads of
0mm, 1mm, and 2mm are added going upward.
Eggbeater traction pads attach to the area shown above,
but only Eggbeater 1, the cheapest model, is incompatible.
Models 2, 3, and 11 support them.
And there are two Crank Brothers distributors in Japan—
one only stocks 1mm-thick traction pads,
and the other doesn't stock Eggbeater traction pads at all,
so there's no way to officially obtain the 2mm-thick
Eggbeater traction pads from authorized channels.
Finally, for shoe-side adjustment,
I've added notes about cleat shim shimming:
There's a mystery here too.
↑The plastic shims that came with the pedal
are shown at different angles in the image,
but it's unclear whether two shims can be stacked
when the spec calls for two shims.
Moreover, this shim is stocked at one of the previously mentioned distributors
as a 2-piece set for 250 yen (tax included),
but the other distributor doesn't carry it.
And separate from this shim,
↑Image from distributor
there's something called the MATCH ShoeShim,
which clearly can't be stacked based on its shape.
Black is 1mm thick, and the gray shown above is 1.5mm thick.
The Crank Brothers cleat tool is officially called
"Cleat Tool Gray V2," suggesting there's a version 1
that isn't gray, with the correspondence table
still reflecting V1... which might explain
some of these discrepancies.
For my shoe in this case,
though I didn't measure right at the cleat position,
the correct setting at dot 2 calls for
2mm traction pad.
Against that,
I'm using the original 1mm traction pad.
If I switched to 2mm, the friction would increase and reduce
the feel of returning to center that I get without the set screws,
but since I've achieved near-locked feel with the set screws,
it's probably best to think of the cleat tool as just a guideline.
There are unavailable combinations anyway, like 2mm pads for Eggbeaters.
I make lacquer paint matched as closely as possible
to my Niner frame color,
and I used it to paint a Catterham bell.
But as shown in the image above, when fully painted,
the sound quality becomes very poor,
so I repainted it, leaving the area around the Catterham logo unpainted
so the striker would hit there.
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