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I had my usual morning bike ride yesterday. Going home after about 1.5 hours, I noticed that my rim stickers (top part) were half gone because they get caught when I apply my brakes.

  • Question 1: Is this a normal occurrence, or are my brake pads positioned too low;
  • Question 2: Is it fine to replace the stickers, or have a rim skin installed?; or
  • Question 3: Is it better to leave the rims naked?

Here's a picture of my bike:

enter image description here

You will notice that the top part of the rim sticker has skid marks on it due to the brakes.

enter image description here

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  • Welcome to Bicycles Stack Exchange! Could you please add a close-up picture of the brakes and of the rim sticker skid marks? It's difficult to see any detail in this picture.
    – freiheit
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 1:46
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    It looks like the rear pad might be a little low, but it's hard to tell without a more detailed picture. If you don't fix it by adjusting the pads it would probably be wise to carefully remove that portion of the stickers that the pads catch, so as to not hinder braking.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 2:13
  • Note from the rimskin site: If you have a caliper brake, you must select the Caliper Brake option when choosing your size. This will leave your braking surface uncovered so your brake doesn't rub on the rimSkin. DO NOT APPLY A RIMSKIN OVER THE BRAKING SURFACE OF YOUR RIM IF YOU ARE USING A BRAKE.
    – Daniel R Hicks
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 2:13
  • On a rim designed to be used with a rim brake, theres a clear section for where the brake is supposed to hit. If it hits there and only there, its fine. Otherwise the brake needs adjustment.
    – Batman
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 2:19
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    @freiheit, I've attached a close-up photo of my bike rim.
    – Spo
    Commented May 19, 2014 at 2:46

2 Answers 2

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For your second and third questions: You don't need any stickers on your rims. So you can replace them if you want. Or peel them off completely. Or add some other sort of stickers, eg those RimSkins.

Its just a matter of style - plain black rims can look nice, so can multi-coloured stickers. Or reflective stickers would help you get noticed at night, especially for side visibility. So long as they are kept clean, and not peeling off or looking messy.

Just so long as you don't put any stickers on the braking surface. ie the flat bit of the rim, next to the tyre, where the brake pads should contact. If you put stickers on there, your brakes won't work very well.

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  • Very well said. I was contemplating on an all-black look on my rims for quite a while. Thank you Sir!
    – Spo
    Commented May 21, 2014 at 6:35
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I would say the pad is too low for the following reasons -

  • a) Stickers coming off is a bad sign
  • b) Retaining Bolt is at lowest possible position on the caliper
  • c) what looks like >5mm gap from top of rim to top of pad and tire. Normally you would not see a gap when viewed from this angle.

Note: When adjusting the main thing is to ensure the pad does not run the tire, and is about 2 mm below the top of the rim.

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