Mike's post evoked memories of some peculiar black, molded, plastic pads for Mafacs Way Back When. In my mind's eye, I can still see the very fine foam structure, I think. What I can't remember is why we hated them so much. Were they the super-squealers?
harvey sachs mcLean va. +++++++++++++++++ Mike kone wrote:
I'm not sure if they were La Vipere, but we had a bunch of black pads that looked identical to Mafac a number of years ago and I think that's what they were. They were softer than Mafac - but then a horror. Those pads were so soft that if you applied your brakes a bunch on the long switchback desents here in Boulder, you could melt nearly the entire pad in one outing! Pretty darn scarry actually. The genuine Mafac pads can melt too, but nothing like this. I had a box of perhaps 300 of the pads and I threw them in the trash. Just too risky to let them into circulation. Maybe I just used the brakes "too much", but you know, that can happen if your stuck behind a car and aren't able to "let the bike run" a bit and use wind to slow you down.
Real Mafac pads are out there - lots of sellers I think have them. They even are listed on our on-line store at http://www.renehersebicycles.com as we have a big OEM bag of them still.
The ones we have are probably kinda hard by now (but still work), but modern pads/posts fit into MAFAC so for bikes that really are ridden, there are many options. Most folks seem to like the Salomon colored pads that are the old Matthouser composition.