How to stop brake squeal

How to prevent brakes from squealing - disc and rim brakes. TOC and useful links are listed below this explanation:

Miloš's and my experience is that toe-in usually takes up the brake lever travel and makes the brakes feel squishy at the start. When all is good, it is not needed. When something is off, it doesn't help (or doesn't completely stop the squeal, just reduces it to a limited degree). Excessive toe in can help even with poor brakes, but then you get more drastically reduced lever travel (sometimes to the point of not having enough to apply strong braking force to the rim), even more squishy feeling, and poor wet braking performance.

If there's one point to be taken from my video, it's that toe in should be the last resort, not the default setting so to speak. At least that's been my experience - despite most manufacturers and tutorials saying differently.

Another aspect is that changing stiffness of one component can change the resonating frequency and stop squeal - even tyre pressure and pad bite point at the rim (higher or lower) can affect that (along with caliper quality/stiffness, and even grease acting as a vibration damper). Those are the aspects I haven't seen shown and discussed anywhere (not claiming they aren't but I for sure haven't seen them, so I suppose it's not "common knowledge" yet).

This is nuanced - and I suppose it is easier for manufacturers to recommend just more toe in and call it a day (no squeal, even if performance gets slightly worse - the hard truth of working with customers on a large scale).

Toe-in can mask a problem without solving it, and a good puddle braking wear in usually beats toe in.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

00:00 Introduction
01:47 What is squeal?
03:31 Degrease & align
04:31 Brake pad bedding in
08:13 Aligning & toe-in myth 1
11:40 Example - My bike :)
13:58 Lubricate brake arms
16:06 Tyre pressure affect!
18:29 Aligning the pads
21:31 Bedding in the pads
22:29 Caveats
25:24 Pad recommendation

Useful LINKS:

Bicycle brakes 101 (video):
https://www.bikegremlin.com/3497/brakes-101/

Drum brake (& roller brake) pros and cons (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/15501/drum-brake-pros-and-cons/

Disc vs rim bicycle brakes – pros and cons (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/3871/pros-and-cons-od-bicycle-disc-brakes-compared-to-rim-brakes/

Eliminating disc brake rub (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/7975/disc-brake-rub/

Eliminating disc brake squealing (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/8037/disc-brake-squeal/

Mechanical bicycle brakes – working principle (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/1419/bicycle-mechanical-brakes/

Modern road bicycle rim brakes are unsafe (video):
https://www.bikegremlin.com/988/modern-road-bicycle-rim-brakes-are-unsafe/

Bicycle shifter, brake cable, and housing standards (article):
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/8548/cable-housing-standards/

YouTube eats your time and your comments (article):
https://io.bikegremlin.com/37732/youtube-eats-your-time-and-your-comments/

A cycling industry rant (video):
https://www.bikegremlin.com/2247/a-cycling-industry-rant/

What killed the open Internet? (video):
https://www.bikegremlin.com/3354/what-killed-the-open-internet/

Support page:
https://bike.bikegremlin.com/support/

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https://www.amazon.com/shop/bikegremlinus

My German Amazon (.de) recommendations:
https://www.amazon.de/shop/bikegremlinus

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https://www.bikegremlin.com/about/

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