The joy of brakes

After one too many near misses, I replaced (and upgraded) my brake pads recently.

Here are the pads that came off. They had done about 5,000 miles, in all weathers, and were shot.

Frankly, it's a miracle I hadn't stacked it...

These were not visibly branded but are likely to have been bog-standard Tektro pads, since that's what came on the bike when it was new, oh so many moons ago. Time for an upgrade then, I thought, and splashed out on these from the Clarks Elite range, which promise great performance in all weather conditions and have cut away carriers for weight reduction. I like the idea of weight reduction, even when it's only a couple of grams. Pathetic, I know. Anyway, here's a side-by-side comparison of old and new:

Yes, white carriers. What of it?

This isn't an in-depth review but I can tell you the new brake pads stop an old man on an old bike as well as any pads can reasonably be expected to, and allow you to feed pressure in nicely. Equally, it is once more possible to brake so hard that the back wheel locks up. Which is nice. Will be interesting to see whether I get 5,000 miles out of these...

TLDR: decent pads at this price point, docked a star because the carriers really show the dirt (who'd have thought?) ★★★★☆

BUY: Clarks CPS240 brake pads with extra cartridges, currently £10.99 per set from Cycle Replublic

Full disclosure: I bought these with my own money. If anyone wants to give me kit in exchange for an honest review, I'm open to that, but unless I explicitly say otherwise everything I review on here will be sourced and paid for by yours truly.