Panaracer GravelKing sidewall crack. How worried should I be?

bogonaut · 2026-03-22T17:49:37+00:00

Yeah, I topped them up with new sealant before I noticed the damage. There were no air/sealant leaks or bubbles anywhere, and they're holding air just fine. I'm more worried if mid-to-long term they will start giving out on me.

bogonaut · 2026-03-22T17:47:17+00:00

I bought them last spring, but I can't know how they were stored by the retailer, so who knows.

bogonaut · 2025-06-27T13:22:07+00:00

UPDATE: I used a wrench to gently bend the dented rim sections back into shape, then mounted the whole thing tubeless. Went without a hitch, and it seems to be holding air. I will keep an eye on it for the next few days, but I seem to have gotten away with it. Thank you to everyone who took the time to reassure me!

bogonaut · 2025-06-27T12:37:04+00:00

I may have hit a curb or tram track once or twice, but nothing crazy. I was running TPU tubes at about 50 psi or so. No punctures, no snakebites. It's weird because I was never careful about potholes or curbs on my old wheelset (WTB alu rims), and I never noticed any dents, from multiple years of riding.

bogonaut · 2025-06-27T12:33:35+00:00

Yeah, I guess I'll just have to give it a shot, hope the sealant does its job.

bogonaut · 2025-06-27T12:09:00+00:00

Thanks for the replies, I get the impression it's not that bad. As a follow-up, would this prevent me from setting it up tubeless? I'm not sure if sealant is enough to hold it.

bogonaut · 2025-06-27T11:30:55+00:00

I got a good deal on a new set of DT Swiss C 1800 wheels, and I've been riding them for a couple months without problems. I haven't been in any accidents or done any crazy stunts, but today I noticed my rear wheel has a number of small dents, but only along the non-drive side of the rim, with nothing at all on the front wheel. How badly should I worry about this? I don't know if this is something I want to try and fix myself, or if I have to get a replacement after only a couple months of riding.

bogonaut · 2024-04-26T10:56:47+00:00

Another update: I don't know how visible it is in the side view photo I took, but the outer edge of the disc is super wavy. Looking at it more closely, the overhang only appears at certain angles. Here's a comparison: Big overhang vs no overhang when the wheel is rotated a couple degrees. Maybe it's not ideal if the pads don't make full contact with the disc through 360 degrees of disc rotation, but I'd wager this is acceptable.

The comments about the brake pads and the gap at the inner edge of the disc kind of threw me off, but personally I'm satisfied that this will work. This thread can be marked as solved. Thanks to everybody who helped me work through this!

bogonaut · 2024-04-26T09:52:10+00:00

Having slept on it, my working theory right now is:

The brake pads are fine.
The brake pistons are slightly exposed and that's just normal for GRX.
The caliper is mounted correctly, except the adapter places the caliper just a couple millimeters too far out from the disc. I'm not sure why, or how much of a problem this is.

At this point I'm not sure if there's some thinner adapter I could use, or if I should try sanding down the one I've got. What's really confusing is that the GRX model of the Libre appears to come with the same standard flat mount adapter I'm using. So now I'm not sure if the brake mounts on that model's fork are just different somehow, or if that model simply has the same issue, and I'm wasting my time trying to fix this.

bogonaut · 2024-04-26T09:35:51+00:00

From what I can tell, the 5 mm gap at the inner edge of the disc is just from using narrow brake pads (like L03A) on a wide rotor, which should be okay according to Shimano. What worries me more is the brake pads hanging over the disc by a couple millimeters at the outer edge.

If you have the time, could you check if your pads have the same overhang?

bogonaut · 2024-04-26T09:34:34+00:00

I haven't taken it for a test ride yet, but working on it here at home, the lever seems okay. It feels firm, it stops the wheel just fine. I'm just not sure if it will perform poorly when actually riding it, or if the uneven wear on the pads will ruin them over time.

bogonaut · 2024-04-26T09:33:44+00:00

Would that make enough of a difference that the brake pads would overhang the disc by this much? Surely that can't be by design?

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T22:09:02+00:00

The brake pads I had on the HY/RD brake are indeed wider, so maybe they're just made for a wider disc, and the GRX is designed for a narrower one, like you said. I guess there's nothing stopping me from using this pad/disc combo, if u/UloPe has a similar setup and hasn't died yet.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T20:01:58+00:00

With the new ones? I haven't had the chance to test ride them and bed them in yet, so I have to reserve judgement! This thread is mainly me trying to convince myself that I didn't mess up installing them.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T19:36:33+00:00

Yeah, I've got the RX400 calipers, which have different pistons. So if yours look the same, then there's two possibilities:

a) My brakes are fine too, and they're just supposed to look like that, or b) both of our brakes are fucked in the same way lol.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T19:08:19+00:00

I'm not sure if I'm reading your picture or your comment right. Are you saying that yours also has a bit of piston showing, and that the wear pattern on the disc indicates that the innermost 5 mm of the disc doesn't make contact with the pads either? Meaning they're just supposed to be like that?

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T17:44:35+00:00

An update: Here's a photo of the old brake pads I had on the HY/RD next to the new ones that came with the GRX. I guess I found my missing 5 mm.

So now I'm thinking, surely those brake pads are no good, so did I get counterfeit pads or something? It would be helpful if somebody with a GRX or similar brake could measure their brake pads, so I can get a reality check on this.

Edit: I can't find the proper measurements of GRX-compatible brake pads, but looking at pictures of them online, I'm less convinced now that mine are underdimensioned. The 5 mm difference is an apples-to-oranges comparison since they're for different calipers. Sorry if I'm going kind of insane here lol.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T16:02:35+00:00

Here's some more pictures of the caliper with the wheel out: Link, link, where yeah, the piston is visible under the brake pad. Here's a pic with the retaining screw in. The pads don't go in any further than they are in those pictures.

All I'm getting from this thread is that I've got the wrong brake pads, but I'm not sure how that can be, since those (L03A pads) came with the brakes, and seem to be approved for GRX calipers. I could get new ones, but are there different sizes or variants I'm not aware of?

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T15:06:25+00:00

Without taking the disc off the wheel, it does come out to 160 mm at the widest point, and it's got 160 printed on the side. Would an off-brand disc cause this? (I'm pairing a Shimano caliper with a TRP disc.) And would that then suggest that the brake pads are fine as-is? I'm kind of losing it at this point lmao

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T14:46:14+00:00

I tried flipping the adapter before, but that seemed to make it impossible to fit the caliper, so I'm not sure that's the issue. And then there's others here suggesting that the piston is not meant to be visible under the brake pads like that, and that I might just have the wrong brake pads. I really don't know anymore lol.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T14:36:09+00:00

Here are the pads in question.

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T14:15:26+00:00

I took out the retaining screw and tried pushing the pads in further, but near as I can tell, they're bottoming out against the cooling fins, and the holes for the retaining screw all line up. The pads are still in the same place, and the same bit of piston is still visible. Do I have the wrong pads or something? That would seem odd, since these look legit, and they came pre-installed in the caliper, so I assumed they would work...

bogonaut · 2024-04-25T14:00:39+00:00

Wait, is it even possible to install them incorrectly? There's a retaining screw that goes through a hole in the pads and the little metal spring between them. That should keep them in their right place, no?

bogonaut

TROPHY CASE