07-11-2013, 02:27 PM
In the days before I bought my CB1100 I read up on break-in procedures the new bike would need. I've had disc brakes on my cars for many years and thought I understood them fairly well - I was wrong!
There's a variety of opinions on how to best "bed-in" new disc brakes. You can find them with the Google search " Motorcycle disc brake bedding in ".
I read a lot of them and had the most confidence in [url=http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/-warped-brake-disc-and-other-myths]this one .
Quick summary (but read the references before doing it yourself): The brake system must be heated uniformly to a high enough temperature to burn off the resins from the pads and transfer an even layer of pad material onto the surface of the disc.
(BTW I have non-ABS) I found a two lane road, a couple of miles long that only had long driveways letting on to it. The terrain was flat with few trees so I had good visibility. I did a series of 8-10 fairly hard stops with the clutch pulled in from about 45 or 50 mph down to about 10 mph, immediately accelerating back up to 45 and braking to 10, never coming to a complete stop or locking up the rear. I did this separately for the front and the rear brakes and I did two sets of each.
The rear brake heated up much faster than the fronts because of its much smaller surface area and being out of the direct wind stream. The paint on the edge of the disc turned to ash and the surface of the discs are discolored. I couldn't get the front brakes hot enough to burn off the paint on the edge of the discs but they worked much better than before I bedded them in.
I can easily lock up the rear brake on dry pavement and both front and rear engage gently but can haul me down quickly and smoothly from any speed. They don't make any noise.
There's a variety of opinions on how to best "bed-in" new disc brakes. You can find them with the Google search " Motorcycle disc brake bedding in ".
I read a lot of them and had the most confidence in [url=http://www.stoptech.com/technical-support/technical-white-papers/-warped-brake-disc-and-other-myths]this one .
Quick summary (but read the references before doing it yourself): The brake system must be heated uniformly to a high enough temperature to burn off the resins from the pads and transfer an even layer of pad material onto the surface of the disc.
(BTW I have non-ABS) I found a two lane road, a couple of miles long that only had long driveways letting on to it. The terrain was flat with few trees so I had good visibility. I did a series of 8-10 fairly hard stops with the clutch pulled in from about 45 or 50 mph down to about 10 mph, immediately accelerating back up to 45 and braking to 10, never coming to a complete stop or locking up the rear. I did this separately for the front and the rear brakes and I did two sets of each.
The rear brake heated up much faster than the fronts because of its much smaller surface area and being out of the direct wind stream. The paint on the edge of the disc turned to ash and the surface of the discs are discolored. I couldn't get the front brakes hot enough to burn off the paint on the edge of the discs but they worked much better than before I bedded them in.
I can easily lock up the rear brake on dry pavement and both front and rear engage gently but can haul me down quickly and smoothly from any speed. They don't make any noise.