****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Good stopping and (so far) not much wear. Don't balk at the price. Your old rod brake roadster may not be a racing bike, but it's always good to be able to stop. There are other sources for these types of pads, but you end up having to deal with Chinese and Indian (where these brakes are still in use) eBay vendors, and the pads you get may be hand cut from discarded tractor tires. Get the Kool Stops.Instead of posting the typical pretty "after" pictures, I'm posting some photos that may help you install these inserts. I'll include an almost-obligatory unboxing photo, just for the sake of form. I received one plastic zip-lock style bag, containing a Kool Stop sticker (which would be even "Kooler" if it were reflective, but it isn't), a piece of paper describing the product (but with no instructions printed on it - or URL linking to instructions), and four salmon-compound Kool Stop brake shoe inserts.Photo "A" is what you'll see when you take your shoes off the bike. The red arrows point to the "closed" end of the shoe holder. On my bike, they weren't so much closed as just crimped to be more narrow, but it's important that you determine which end is closed. Badly overexposed photo "B" shows the "closed" end of the shoe holder better. Some shoe holders may have an actual metal tab over the "closed" end of the shoe holder.Once you know which end of the shoe holder is the "open" end, you just shove the old shoes out that end. Photo "C" shows one technique. Once you've got the old shoe inserts out, installation is the reverse - just slide them into the "open" end of the shoe holder.If the new shoes seem a little loose when you insert them into the holders, it's perfectly permissible (and recommended) to squeeze the sides of the shoe holders in a bit to grip the shoe inserts better. You can do this with a vise, or the squeezing implement of your choice.CAUTION: Be careful when you install them to have the direction of wheel rotation towards the closed end of the shoe holders. Photo "D" shows two shoes that came off one of my bikes. Some "mechanic" wasn't paying attention, installing the shoe holders backwards, and the shoe inserts were slowly working themselves out of their holders. Don't do that.Edit: I didn't mention it, and I'm not sure it's mentioned in the product listing, but the claim is that the Salmon pads work better with steel rims in the wet. FWIW.
