SwissStop just sent word about their new Black Prince brake pads for carbon rims, taking over the top rung from their Yellow King compound.
While pics of the actual product were missing, we do have these fancy charts that show their claimed performance. Those claims state performance on par with alloy braking surfaces using their Original Black pads, and vastly improved wet weather performance and a more linear lever force to braking force graph over the Yellow King.
Word is these are getting spec’d on Specialized bikes with their new aero Roval Rapide wheels. I had a few brief rides on them, but not enough to form an opinion. Fortunately, we have a set of pads coming in for test soon.
UPDATE: Christian from SwissStop chimed in to say that while some wheel brands ship with their own pads, these should work just fine on any carbon rim (but that customers should may need to use the pads the wheel builder lists in order to maintain their warranty. Per the legal dept, SwissStop is not responsible for any warranty for damaged wheels because of the use of wrong pads). We’ll have a list of OEM partners soon.
And, any rims that ship with their Yellow King pads will work well with Black Prince pads, too. Retail will be €39-42 for two-pair packs and should start shipping to distributors just after Interbike in September.
More charts and graphs behind the break…
For us Yanks, that’s about 37mph to 0 in about 300 feet.
