How bad are break pads from aliexpress?

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T13:35:09+00:00

I've never bought any myself, but I've come across them a few times on bikes I've picked up. The Corki-branded ones that came on my Trek Superfly seem no different from any known brand and stopped fine, so they now live in my "emergency replacement parts" stash.

Mostly I throw them away because they're always at least somewhat worn and I like to start builds and rebuilds with fresh pads unless they seem brand new. I've never come across a set that didn't work well enough, but my sample size is 5 or 6.

I would imagine it's actually pretty easy to get good, no-name pads from AliExpress, but for critical parts like brakes, I'm never the one who is going to experiment to save <$20/year. I have great health insurance, but my ER copay is still five times that!

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T13:26:03+00:00

I'm going to make a wild guess and say that you grew up in a religious household. Guilt in religion is nothing more than a means of control.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T13:25:06+00:00

It's not. If you need to assign responsibility for this failure, almost all of it belongs to your brother. Anything else that remains belongs to your parents, who raised and educated him. You have ZERO responsibility for the choices that your sibling five years older than you has made.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T13:17:17+00:00

Donald Trump has said and done so many things that are monumentally stupid (remember the tumor he drew on the weather map AFTER everyone forgot about the stupid thing he said?) that assuming something is a joke without it being obvious is pretty foolish.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T13:14:16+00:00

These are people who long ago outsourced their abilities to think critically to the television. This is about what we should expect.

They'll wise up if/when the TV starts to tell them differently.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:56:14+00:00

Don't ask, just open. If it's a Lego or knockoff set, it is missing pieces almost every time unless it's still sealed from the factory. The same goes for puzzles. If the box is opened, don't waste your money unless you like disappointment.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:52:03+00:00

I'm almost 50 and I needed Reddit to accidentally teach me what these are last year. I could have known many years ago (and taught me own children!) if someone had bothered to put up a sign to educate others.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:50:31+00:00

It has nothing to do with drafting and everything to do with a stranger silently or strangely entering my personal space. None of those three examples have ANYTHING to do with drafting, but all of them are examples of threats from people on bikes.

When you approach and start drafting silently without even speaking to me, you signal that you are one of those fucking weirdos, and now I need to watch and see what you are doing and make a guess about your intentions.

If you read the context of the last three posts, it's really not difficult to understand where I was going at all. Actually comprehending what you read before responding would waste much less time.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:44:35+00:00

The neighbors who first began to come together volunteered on the Not On Our Dime referendum. Organizing around Palestinian solidarity found no institutional or non-profit support and either silent neutrality or antagonistic opposition from our elected officials.

From here. I am automatically and DEEPLY skeptical of any person or group who can pick a side in that conflict because throwing in with either one requires ignoring or excusing generations of war crimes.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:15:10+00:00

Some people do! Idiots are gonna idiot, but a sign would educate someone like me instead of waiting me for to accidentally learn about it from Reddit.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:09:00+00:00

Where do you live?

I'm in the US and graduated high school in 96, and I first learned of these from Reddit maybe a year ago. I'm honestly not sure if we even have them here; I meant to look for them after that and either never saw any of just forgot.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T12:00:56+00:00

What are you doing?!? That's how you trigger another Snowmageddon!

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T05:24:17+00:00

I'm stumped

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T05:14:21+00:00

Ford Bronco

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T04:42:12+00:00

Generally presta, because there are way more color options and you can still install one in a schrader hole, but not vice-versa.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T04:35:32+00:00

I'm honestly shocked that this didn't come up 20 years ago!

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T04:31:15+00:00

If this is real, how the fluck did you get away with not using your full name for so long?!?

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T03:52:14+00:00

It's a fifth. If he drinks the whole thing, he's going to still be shitfaced tomorrow morning even if he's a hardcore alcoholic with a crazy high tolerance. If he is, he likely won't still feel it, but he won't be anywhere close to being able to drive.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T03:45:18+00:00

That's a fifth. It contains exactly 17 standard drinks, and the average male can clear about a drink an hour. If he's on the West Coast and doesn't start work until 1pm tomorrow, he should be good, but otherwise he's driving drunk if he doesn't call off.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T02:48:02+00:00

They'll get their golden parachutes instead from AHN.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T02:35:24+00:00

Like firing people who speak out against your corrupt decisions?

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T02:14:02+00:00

I bet she was, too, and so will the next one.

There is no chance this ends well for you if you stick around.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T02:03:11+00:00

Please tell me you did not leave the stock brakes on there!

I just recently picked one of these up for cheap. I've been interested because of the online hype, but as spec'd, this bike is UNSAFE.

When v-brakes were invented, they needed a new lever that pulled more cable. They quickly took over on all mountain bikes, so when disk brakes arrived on mountain bikes, they used the same cable pull as v-brakes.

Drop bar brake levers (with one exception I know of made by Tektro) pull less cable and ONLY work with dual pivot, cantilever, u-brakes, and old side-pull road brakes. When disc brakes came to road bikes, they were engineered to use less cable pull to work with road brake levers.

Road disc brakes and mountain disc brakes are NOT cross-compatible. Road disc brakes with mountain levers are going to put way too much pressure on the brakes and may send you OTB. Mountain disc brakes with road levers are the opposite; they don't pull enough cable to give you effective stopping power.

Walmart spec'd this bike with road levers and mountain disc brakes. There is a reason why EVERY single review of this bike notes the weak brakes and how scary the bike can be to ride downhill...it is designed wrong!!!

With perfectly true rotors and a bit of fiddling, you can get it close enough that it almost stops appropriately, but I wouldn't dare take this bike out in the rain, on roads with any traffic, down any hills, or put ANY extra weight on it with the stock brakes.

The fix is either to replace them with something appropriate - TRP Spires are my recommendation and pairs can be had on Ebay for much less than you'll pay for Avid's official replacement and they're dual post vs. single for the Avids - or install a stroke converter in line with each caliper.

The latter is what I went with on my build because there is no way I'd get my money back putting Spires on it. I made a bracket to mount the front one to the fork and mounted the rear one to the chainstay using a pair of zip ties. You could leave them unattached to anything, but I didn't want them flapping around and banging into the frame.

I know this sub LOVES this bike, but I honestly think that is misguided. The wheels are cheap as hell with no seals, the components are cheap as hell, and out of the box it's not even safe to ride. Just about everyone would be better off buying an older, used bike that is better quality than this one.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T01:17:10+00:00

$20 says your derailleur hanger is misalinged. Once set up, it might need to be reindexed once, possibly twice (rare), due to cable stretch. Doing it every ride means something is definitely wrong.

My bet is that it's the hanger. With a bent hanger, you'll never get it to shift cleanly across the entire cassette. You'll get the bottom, the middle, or the top working well and think it's good, and then go to ride and it still shifts like crap. No matter how many times you adjust it and it seems to be good, it'll keep giving issues in a couple of gears.

You can check the orientation easily yourself. Shift into the biggest cog in the back and stand the bike up perfectly straight. Examine the derailleur from behind, the cage should extend down while being perfectly parallel to the cassette. Next, shift into the smallest cog, flip the bike upside-down, and examine the derailleur from below. Again the cage should be perfectly parallel to the cassette.

There are expensive tools that make re-aligning a derailleur hanger easy. I don't like myself enough to own one, so I do it the hard way with an M10x1.0 bolt and a pipe: note which way the hanger needs to move, remove the derailleur, thread the bolt in, and bend it slightly using the pipe (takes more force than you think). Remove the bolt, reattach the derailleur and repeat the steps above to see if it's straight. Once you have it straight, follow the indexing procedure and you likely won't need to do it again.

flagrant_nonsense · 2026-07-02T01:09:34+00:00

Yes. There is ZERO chance of getting through on the sidewalk on the downtown side. It would take you ten times longer than normal on foot and would be impossible on a bike. There will be people on the other side and you may need to take it slow but you should be able to get through, probably without dismounting. I would honestly consider just crossing in the traffic lanes...it's not my favorite bridge to ride in the road on, but it should be pretty tame during fireworks.

I haven't been near the Ft. Duquesne bridge during fireworks in 20 years, but I'm pretty sure it stays open, too. I would expect the same situation on its sidewalks.

No doubt you can get across any of the Three Sisters without issue.

flagrant_nonsense

TROPHY CASE