Gravel / Gravé / Gnarmac / Groad / ATB

I stopped bothering to be fussy about pads when swapping. I don't even care if they go from resin to metallic so long as they still work. Keep the same size cassette on makes it easier/quicker. Might still have to align the calipers but that's a 2min job and I don't tend to be riding gravel one day and road the next so it'll tend to stay as a gravel bike a while and then go back to road for a while... #csb

In other word, you can afford to have new pads/rotors if they get contaminated/worn/glazed basically.

Swapping wheels is just what you have to do if you don't have space for multiple bikes. If you have a road bike, an audax bike, a commuter, a gravel bike, a rigid mountain bike, a trail bike then yeah there's not really any point because you probably already have something suitable ready to go. If your gravel bike is your road bike then swapping wheels is easier than removing and refitting tyres or doing SFAB on slicks

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Allied Able looks nice. But only 1x.
https://alliedcycleworks.com/collections/able

I'd skip the Cervelo just because their slogan sounds like they don't want me to ride it. Every bike I'll have will have some kind of a bag or bags.

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you can have both

Well yes, most people change pads and rotors when they get worn. :P

I've had no issues with mine or the grrl's on our gravel/road bike getting contaminated. Only the Inbred with its XTR was crazy noisy. I'm quite careful with my rotors though, not like you filthy lot, with your WD40 "chain lube" and touchy touchy rotors with oily fingers.

Unclean! Unclean!

You must've skimmed past my various diatribes on 1x :P

That chainstay hurts my brain but I'm now googling to see if they're in the UK and for how much...

https://99spokes.com/en-GB/bikes/allied/2020/able-frameset

£3000+ for a frameset? Nah...

Not with Cervelo it seems.

Yeah but you could change your mind just for the sake of agument.

Change my mind? What is that? Some kind of voodoo? ;)

I've got a Gravel P2M ready to go so it's got to be 2x I'm afraid. I also think that raised stay looks pretty fugly and this is coming from the guy with more electrical tape showing than paint on half his bikes. :D

Well, I ride 2x on rhe drop bar bike too... but both seem to work so does it even matter. Except indeed if you already have the stuff you want to use. What have I done, not another depate about this again :D

Nah, it's another suggestion taken on board, considered and dismissed. Appreciate it. Someone else might think it's their solution though. I'm more likely to be doing hilly road riding with it so I'm erring towards the Crux or Vitus.

Not likely to be purchased for months anyway so who knows what will be around when I actually want to pull the trigger.

Have done. 650b with 48s and 700c with 35-40mm.

Gave the bike very different feel and with the same hub in both rear wheels I never had to do any adjustment between wheelsets.

I run a few different wheelsets on the MS. I use the same cassette and rotors on them all. With centre mount you can change the whole lot over in under 5 mins. Much clearer than changing tyres over.

Just to be extra extra I have 2 sets of wheels but one is a set of 3, one rear and 2 fronts, one dynamo one not. Kinlin XR31+Bitex/Shimano for light gravel/Touring.
The second set are Hunt Aero light for summer road.

I seem to have several very similar bikes with more or less the same tyres

I'll never learn

I was thinking just that the other day, but they are all fixed and have slightly different gearing, so that’s ok.

But jokes aside, the only things stopping me from doing this are that my gravel bike is 1x only, and Im still invested in rim-brake wheelsets for road/TT.

You’re not wrong.

Guess that’s the difference between the lufguss, and customers in my workshop.

The majority of the customers we have always do tubeless swap from gravel to road and vice versa.

Took some coaxing to some customers to get slickish 38mm for best of both world.

What makes rotors/pads more likely to get contaminated/glazed when switching wheels on a bike? Genuine question! Is it because if one or the other gets fucked up, it'll write off the other set when you switch as well?

The reason I swap rotors as well as the wheels now is because I found the brakes needed I bit of bedding in again each time you swapped. My guess is the pads and rotors don’t wear evenly and they get ridges which can fill with contaminants?

That checks out! Thanks for the explanation.

As @Chaley very correctly said, pads and rotor wear together, more often than not if you only replace the pads with an old rotor, it can cause accelerated wear on pads, less braking power and slight (or more( noise.

This is problematic when a pads is worn nicely to one rotor but does not provide exactly the same braking power on another rotor from another wheel.

Techinically a rotor is to be ridden until it hit 1.5mm thick, but in my experiences servicing bikes, it’s not the thickness but the wear ridges on the rotor (like a vinyl record).

I go for Magura rotor for this reason, they’re very hard wearing, less likely to have wear ridges and can go through several pads before performance get reduced (by wear ridges).

When I just replace pads, it is not uncommon for customers to return saying their braking are not great, once I’ve started quoting both pads and rotors, the number of customers returning plummet massively (same with chain; replace both chain and cassette also reduces this massively rather than just the chain, especially on 11+ speed bicycles).