I'm pretty sure Mavic offers the XC717 and XM719 rims in ceramic, check their site.
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A light weight racer type or more occasional rider may never break in ceramic rims to the high polish finish which brakes so poorly. I'm near 200 lbs. and climb (and brake downhill) a lot, so I broke them in to be like polished porcelain within a year if they didn't chip first. They did brake better than aluminum for the first few months.mtb_biker said:
I did about 6 years of ceramic rims before my upgrade to disc in 2000. I used Mavic :thumbsup: mostly and tried a few Bontrager wheels with ceramic rims (crap wheels back then, hopefully improved by now). I used to wear out Mavic aluminum rims with rim brakes in one year, ceramics would last 2 or 3 if they didnt chip first.
The main thing I liked about ceramic over aluminum was I could use more abrasive (ceramic) pads than aluminum wheels to keep the rims clean and squeal-free. I preferred green Koolstops and duel compound 50/50 (ceramic/normal) orange/black compound WTB (made by Koolstop) pads, Shimano ceramic pads were harder and were worse braking. The abrasive ceramic pads cleaned and prevented rubber build up and the resulting brake squeal which I often had problems with using Mavic SUP rims.
I think there are ceramic disc brakes available now too, but I don't remember where I saw them.
- ray
Tried duel compound pads on alu rims
My weight and long downhills after much climbing really heat up my brakes. With aluminum rims I couldn't run red pads for more than a quarter mile without rubber build up and squealing. Blacks would last a few rides, then I had to clean them with scotch bright. This seemed to occur on the higher end lighter aluminum wheels. I don't recall having this squeal problem in my earlier mountain bike days. Maybe the more powerful v-brakes were the difference, although I made my early canti's nearly as powerful.
Oh to be an average size rider!
- ray
WTB markets (or did 10 years ago) the duel compound orange (ceramic) plus black (normal rubber) pads as "extreme use" pads, not ceramic only. Actually with aluminum rims they had worse braking power than all black or red pads. But they were the only pads I could use that were self-cleaning and didn't build up rubber on the rim. But then aluminum rims wore out quickly. And so I went to ceramic... and was impressed at first by the improved power ... until they polished out and were worse, not a whole lot worse, but certainly no better than aluminum rim braking power after about 6 months of use. And worse braking than aluminum when wet, non-existent. In the rain with new ceramic rims I was able to grind up a new set of ceramic pads in one ride, at least the rims didn't grind up too like aluminum did in the rain. I probably should have used those duel compound pads on my ceramic rims but they cost almost 3 times as much as Koolstop ceramic pads.shiggy said:
My weight and long downhills after much climbing really heat up my brakes. With aluminum rims I couldn't run red pads for more than a quarter mile without rubber build up and squealing. Blacks would last a few rides, then I had to clean them with scotch bright. This seemed to occur on the higher end lighter aluminum wheels. I don't recall having this squeal problem in my earlier mountain bike days. Maybe the more powerful v-brakes were the difference, although I made my early canti's nearly as powerful.
Oh to be an average size rider!
- ray
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