A friend of a friend appeared at my front door the other day asking for help with improving the braking on his Marin Bolanis Ridge 1 entry level mtb.

It’s his everyday transport and it has a rather ‘fruity’ home brew e-bike conversion done by a friend of his to help him navigate the hills round Hay and the brakes suffer, particularly on some of the longer local descents, when carrying shopping etc.

He doesn’t want to spend much and is happy to keep the cable discs. Thankfully, it’s got decent compressionless housing on the cables. I’ve got a couple of bb7 callipers lurking somewhere I was keeping for a future project, but before I offer those I thought I’d try a pad upgrade.

It’s got ‘power cx’ cable discs brakes which use a shimano compatible pads e.g. br-m515, m475, m525 m465, m495.

Anyone got any suggestions about any particular brands or compounds please?

Gorillabrakes.com look promising with a bewildering array of different compounds but any suggestions welcome.

Cheers.

Uberbike Race Matrix pads. I've used them for years in all bikes road and off-road. Softer hence more power and don't squeal.

Softer pads will be more powerful and wear faster...is it organic or resin..also more likely to get brake fade
Brands i suspect much of a muchness I cannot tell any real difference in use between brands personally bit i am not weighted and doing 35 mph on a dodgy ebike

Lazarus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:05 pm Brands i suspect much of a muchness …

From experience, I'd stick with a known brand name. I've been forced to use cheap and nasty when nothing else was available and had multiple pads separate from the backing bad mid-ride.

FWIW, I find Galfer pads good and reliable.

I'd stick with a known brand

Yes fair point in making sure you have heard of them they can be googled. O meamd between hope,clarkes, superstar uber bikes , sram own brand are the ones i have used.

I remember seeing Sram road type brake pads on ebay just selotaped to plain cardboard....cheap as but I declined to use unbranded pads, as ypu say not worth the risk.

IME Shimano pads are very good - rim or disc.

If he's not riding in the wet, resin pads should have more bite but may need adjustments at the caliper as they'll generally wear a bit faster.

As well as good pads the best thing you can do as an easy cheap fix on a heavy or loaded bike is fit 200mm rotors front and rear, or a 200/180 combo, get that heat dumped as fast as poss.

Lazarus wrote: ↑Sat Feb 22, 2025 3:05 pm Softer pads will be more powerful and wear faster...is it organic or resin..also more likely to get brake fade

Traditionally, but we see compounds blurring the way brake pads perform.
Brake fade will not be an issue on a cable actuated brake. The "fading" of stopping power on a mechanical brake will be a result of glasing. In the end both these issues are a result of overheating though.
I'd look for pads with nickelplated carrier and whilst, traditionally, semi metallic or sintered would be better and still are in the case of most brand's pads, there are exceptions like those I use on my trail bikes for those long and steep alpine descends.
They also come in the needed flavour:
https://www.swissstop.ch/brakepads/disc ... 15/disc-e/
Despite being an organic compound, the behave more like sintered pads (full power comes a bit later, takes a little more to build heat/friction) and last longer than classic organic's.

Then go with the biggest rotors you/he can fit to his bike. Make sure to follow manufacturers instructions regarding max. rotor size. I went beyond the max. recommended rotor size on my former long travel trail bike and all was well, but this wasn't quite a bike you could get at a DIY shop for 500 quid.
Take the rotor game a bit further and go with an alu spider. Less warping and in one case (Magura) better heat management.
Heavy duty work horse I rode for a couple of years:
https://magura.com/en/EUR/bicycle_tunin ... -p/p/mdr-p
Yeah, may look stupid, but those finns actually work. The heat build up on the friction ring was visibly lower at the contact points (friction ring to alu spider).

1.5 years ago, building a new big trail bike for steep alpine fun, I tried something new and am still pleased with these:
https://r2-bike.com/JAGWIRE-Bremsscheib ... och-220-mm.
Much lighter and offering similar performance. When riding I couldn't tell the difference between the two linked.

But still on the same Swissstop E type pads.

Once, doing some back to back comparisons in the Alps I found the geeked out dual pot to offer more performance than the standard four pot brake setup. Dual pot was an XT with Jagwire rotors and Swissstop E pads (and Plutoline oil). Four pot was all original Shimano XT too, same rotor size.
Simply changing the caliper (to BB7) won't make much of a difference. You may get a different actuation ratio, but that won't help at all with the mentioned issues.

jameso wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2025 11:09 am If he's not riding in the wet, resin pads should have more bite but may need adjustments at the caliper as they'll generally wear a bit faster.

As well as good pads the best thing you can do as an easy cheap fix on a heavy or loaded bike is fit 200mm rotors front and rear, or a 200/180 combo, get that heat dumped as fast as poss.

With any brand I rode, resin/organic compounds always had more of an inital bite in the wet and or cold than metallic/sintered or semi metallic.
Very high performing pads (with good heat management) need a couple of metres (more) to get up to proper working temperature. Just my experience.

And for the rotor sizes, if the bike frame and fork can handle it and the need is there, why not go all the way up to 220 mm.

Thinking about your mate again... brake drag also an issue? I know, it's not always possible to control speed without, but outside of steep and tight mountain paths... even with groceries...

Yeah I find my resin pads still bite fine in the wet, the 'if he's not riding in the wet' comment was related to wear rates and the adjustment of the cable discs - most cable discs perform badly because of poor set up or drift from ideal set up as they wear, more that than pad compound I expect. And twin-piston cable brakes need a lot of adjustment for wear, or sinle pistons need more mechanical clue to keep in adjustment.

A few sets of nicer pads and he could just get some cheaper shimano hydros, which would be a vast improvement and far less maintenance. Add in some bigger rotors (again can be done cheaply) and it will be night and day compared to even a well set up cable disc...

£30 for a F+R set, basic, but good enough: https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-mt ... 31239.html

faustus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 10:41 am A few sets of nicer pads and he could just get some cheaper shimano hydros, which would be a vast improvement and far less maintenance. Add in some bigger rotors (again can be done cheaply) and it will be night and day compared to even a well set up cable disc...

£30 for a F+R set, basic, but good enough: https://www.merlincycles.com/shimano-mt ... 31239.html

That's bonkers! £30 ain't that much more than you could pay for just the pads that come with them. I think I may actually have those generic Shimano callipers on my fat bike, bought during the 'COVID parts famine' when it was all the LBS had available, and they're still doing the job just fine.

faustus wrote: ↑Tue Feb 25, 2025 10:41 amA few sets of nicer pads and he could just get some cheaper shimano hydros, which would be a vast improvement and far less maintenance

A good thought 
Maintenance is indeed very different between the two, especially on a everyday bike.
Whilst I'm absolutely not a fan of mechanic disc brakes and would like to concur, I'm not sure your suggestion would actually make that big of a difference.

I could go into details here, but boiled down: A double pot brake can easily outperform a four pot brake for long descending.

Alpinum wrote: ↑Mon Feb 24, 2025 1:09 pmOnce, doing some back to back comparisons in the Alps I found the geeked out dual pot to offer more performance than the standard four pot brake setup. Dual pot was an XT with Jagwire rotors and Swissstop E pads (and Plutoline oil). Four pot was all original Shimano XT too, same rotor size.
Simply changing the caliper (to BB7) won't make much of a difference. You may get a different actuation ratio, but that won't help at all with the mentioned issues.

I'm convinced by investing in good pads and larger rotors you can get more power out of mech brakes than from the suggested set of hydraulics in the link. He would still need larger rotors and better pads.

Yes, cables need to run smoothly and more maintenance is involved. Yet, in the long term, I too think it's cheaper and definately more fuss free with cheap hydraulics and larger rotors.
But to beat a dead horse some more, the power, heat management, feel etc. is not just about the caliper or type of actuation.