M1100 front brakes feel wooden ???

[Italiatwin]

2009 M1100.
I've not had the bike very long, only done about 600/700 miles on it (5500 total) but I feel the front brakes feel a bit wooden, not much feel especially when cold. They feel better when warm but still not great.
Is it just me or is this normal ?

[chris.p]

Try different brake pads as well as bleeding the calipers.

[Mr Gazza]

Try some EBC Organic pads for feel and power.

Go organic all round though, don't just change the fronts.

Demon tweeks are good for EBC pads.

Don't expect much foir the first 60 or so miles though...After that they just get better and better.

[Italiatwin]

Nice one Mr Gazza , I'll give em a go.

[SunEye]

The evo brakes don't have the greatest amount of feel. All the parts of the braking system are reasonably budget items, you'd probably find that replacing parts with higher quality items will improve things, however I never got further than changing the pads and levers. I found that Carbone Lorraine pads were better than the OEM pads.

[spuggy]

Don't expect much foir the first 60 or so miles though...After that they just get better and better.

There's two parts to bedding in new pads; one is the mechanical burnishing/alignment of the pad/disk friction surface and an even transfer of braking material to the rotor.

The other part is getting a new pad hot enough to cook/gas off the resins at the friction surface. To do this, you need to get the pad close to it's upper temperature design limit - usually anywhere up to 315C for street pads (and up to 760C for race pads). Until you do this, the pad is still "green".

You might do this by decelerating from 60-10 (or 80-10) 10-15 times in a row, and then allowing to cool. And then doing it again, e.g.: http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/bed-in-theory-definitions-and-procedures/stock-brake-system-bed-in

On a vehicle with high-spec pads (like Pagid RS-14) and lots of thermal capacity (seriously big disks), the above may not be enough - as good heat dissipation means they may simply just not get hot enough until you go to the track. At which point they'll go from "pretty darned good" after 1000 street miles (with about 4 "bedding in" attempts) to "Hand Of God" after a session or two...

[Mr Gazza]

My experience bears that out spuggy, but I didn't understand the technical reasons until you pointed them out.

You just have to be careful and think ahead a bit during the first 50/60 miles or so.
My present pads decided that they were run in all of a suddy on the approach to a hairpin!!
I admit that I had used a few more beans than I should have, I grabbed a big handful of front brake to try and reduce the damage...and boy did they bite!!...After a short episode of wiggly stuff I sorted it out, let off the brake and slapped it round...:biggrin:

The resin thing you mention might explain why my brakes squealed and howled about a few hundred or so miles into thier life...I kept cleaning the discs ect with C+B cleaner and it did dissappear.

I totally agree with using the brakes really hard in controlled situations every now and then, it does then the world of good.

Maybe a few cycles of braking as hard as you can, from as fast as you can manage safely, would improve your brakes italiatwin?? It wouldn't hurt anyway..

[Darren69]

Maybe the pads are glazed, if they've not bedded in properly, by repeated hard braking when new? You could try taking them out and roughing them up a bit with some abrasive paper.

Or just take them out and give them give them a stern talking to ;)

[chris.p]

Using a set of SBS road/trackday pads, cant remember the code, but they are really good. On the Cadwell trackday I did last week, they where fantastic, braking into Park at the 200 marker was a doddle :-).
I have picked up a set of Panigale 899 calipers, slightly bigger pistons and monoblock, will let you know how I get on with them once I have fitted them

[slob]

Nice, should get the rear hovering into Park ;-)