Wow, that's nasty

I powerwashed my bike this afternoon, and when I went to take the studded tire off the front again, I tried to adjust up the disc brakes. The inner pad adjustment wouldn't move. OK, I've never had it apart, I just bought it in October, it had factory pads in it and I just put it on.

With some persuasion, the pads came out. Yuck. Folks, that's road salt in there that's come in and re-crystallized. The whole thing was a mess. The great part is, even with this much crap in the pads and calipers, the things were still working perfectly. And, they cleaned up fine. Everything in there is bronze, aluminum and stainless. A power wash, a little scraping and it went back together fine and is smooth again.

Now that I've had the pads out once and I know they're super easy to remove and replace, I'll do this more often. I would have by now but working outside in the winter isn't my favorite thing. But these pads come out in about 30 seconds, and go back in almost as fast. I could just take the whole caliper off in about a minute and then take it inside and work on it there. They're way easier to install and adjust than traditional rim brakes.

This is far larger than actual size. The pads are about 1/2 x 1 inch. The inner one is worn to about 3.25mm; Avid says to replace them at 3.