Today after riding my bike home, i turned it off and wheeled it into the garage. I notied a scraping noise coming from the rear brake. i guess its the brake pad coming in contact with the rotor somehow. Does this mean my back brake is stuck too close to the rotor or just that the brake pads need to be replaced? Same sound but louder if i put the back brake on. A real grinding noise doesnt sound good. When i took the bike in for a new chain around 7K miles they told me the back brake only had 20% left on it. Well that was about 5K miles ago. Now the bike has almost 11K miles. I get it that the brake pad is probably nil, just like a car you get that scraping sound when the brakes are applied when your brake pads are down but would it make that sound even when the brake isnt applied? Is there some sort of wear indicator that makes that scraping noise at a certain point even if the brakes arent applied?  Final question....is it safe to take it to the shop like that or is it easy to replace the pads myself? Ive never done it.

Not sure whether my bike has a rear brake???

The pads are easy to replace.



You may want to move this to tech.

Pads are easym, but mine has made that weird scraping noise for the past 18,000 miles ~

JM

Quote from: SaltLick on September 17, 2008, 09:49:30 PM
Is there some sort of wear indicator that makes that scraping noise at a certain point even if the brakes arent applied?  Final question....is it safe to take it to the shop like that or is it easy to replace the pads myself? Ive never done it.

The wear indicators of bike brake pads at typically a slot or groove cut in the face of the pad down to a specific depth.  When you've worn enough of the pad down that the groove is gone, time for new pads.  A lot of pads have this feature - but not all, just FYI.

Pads are easy to do - you'd be wasting money having a shop do the work.
Here's a link to a nice tutorial on replacing pads - it's even on a rear brake.  You can also see a couple photos of the pads, which shows that groove I mention
http://www.ducatisuite.com/brakepads.html