Disc brakes & sand/mud/grit

[zax]

I'm a relative newcomer to disc brakes, been running them since last summer on my hybrid. All has been well so far but last night after a very rainy trip along some gravel/sand roads I found that the wet mixture thrown up from the road quickly clogged them up, and spent the next 20km enjoying the noise of grit grinding on metal. It's still there now even after a good rinse down. I'll take everything apart and give it a good clean and see what the damage is if any but is there anything I can do to avoid this? Full mudguards fitted, which seemed to do bugger all. Do people change the pad clearance for conditions like this for example?

[anonymous-user]

Its an unfortunate fact of life with discs i'm afraid. its only pads and discs wearing out and replacements are pretty cheap but they will wear out quickly in some conditions.

A mate who rides regularly in the Peak district complains that the unique fine grit in the Peaks wears out organic pds in a single ride

a good blast with one of the aerosol brake cleaners is a quick fix but at least that griding noise isnt pads agasint rims....

[P-Jay]

Par for the course I'm afraid, it's only gritty water though really, quick hose off with usually shake it - if it's still grinding after that the pads might be done.

Not much you can do to prevent it, I don't know of any guards that protect brakes, you can get harder wearing sintered pads for most brakes which would be fine for commuting, they can overheat on serious MTB terrain and bake as hard as a fecking diamond - which makes them great for creating a lot of noise and very little braking power.

[Gizmoish]

About this time last year I went out in the forest on some freshly re-sand-ed trails. The sand got into the rotating drum bit right in the middle and I had to replace it. There's a lot to be said for rim brakes in terms of cleaning...

[zax]

Thanks, hopefully a good clean or failing that new pads will sort it out. It was unusually rainy last night so the roads were a mudbath, but since a good percentage of the roads here are made of gravel it's hard to avoid. If there's nothing else to be done to prevent it then I had better just stay indoors during monsoon type weather