Your bike started up and is running well-you feel the power from the motor, but do you have the power to stop?
The HOT BIKE staff knows it's important to be safe out there, and we try to bring you the latest in protective gear and products. Of course, a big part of safety is checking out your bike before you ride. One important precautionary element that's often overlooked when checking your bike for potential problems is the parts you just can't see, such as the brake pads. Most guys do the typical stuff like changing the oil, checking tire pressure, and tightening up a few bolts, but they rarely look to see if the brakes are in top working order.
The easiest thing to check is the brake-fluid level. Take it a few steps further. How clean is the fluid in the master cylinder and line? Do you have adequate pad life? Too often we hear the guy with a scarred rotor and squeaky brakes tell the story about how he waited too long to check his brakes, and now he needs to get new rotors as well as pads. If you check your brake system regularly, not only can you save yourself some money-more importantly, you can save your life.
One of the guys on staff, Brad, was heading out for a ride a few weekends ago. As he started looking over his bike, he noticed a few buttons were missing from his floating rotors. This got him thinking about the last time he had thoroughly checked his brakes. Brad called over to Lyndall Racing to get a set of pads and a few new buttons for the rotor (MSRP: $46 for a pair of pads; $78 for 10 buttons). Paul Kittrell, president of Lyndall Racing Brakes, told Brad about the new Z-Plus brake pads. The Z-Plus compound is a softer version of LRB's gold compound and does not require break-in. This pad is a great all-purpose riding pad and offers a high coefficient of friction. It produces no dust or rotor wear, and no noise to boot. Paul told us that these pads last about 18,000 miles, depending on the rider. One day Paul stopped by on his way home to give Brad a hand with the brake check, tune-up, and cleaning.
The bike was placed on the lift, and the front tire was removed. Paul unbolted the calipers from the lower leg as Brad pulled the axle and the wheel. | 
Replacement of the missing buttons came next. Paul knew that Brad needed to replace at least a few of them, so he swapped them all out to keep a consistent look. | 
The Lyndall buttons have a pressure washer to help keep the rotor from chattering. |
After removing both front rotors from the wheel, Paul replaced all the old rotor buttons and installed all new Lyndall buttons. | 
The calipers were covered in brake dust. Brad washed the calipers and pads with a can of brake cleaner to get a good look at both. | 
After pulling out the pad pin from the caliper, the old, worn pads came right out. With more than 70 percent of your stopping power coming from the front brake, it's easy to see why you would need to check your front pads more regularly than the rear. |
Here are the new Lyndall Z-Plus pads. As quickly as the old pads came out, the new pads were installed. | 
Another important item that is often overlooked is the condition of the brake fluid. We wanted to flush out all the old DOT-5 and clean the lines. Paul removed the bleeder valve from both calipers to let gravity do the work. As the old fluid drained out of the lines, Brad added new DOT-5 to the master cylinder to keep from getting air in the lines. | 
With the bleeder out of the caliper, Paul saw that the bleeder bolt's hex was stripped and needed to be replaced. |
After the pads and the bleeders were installed and the line had new DOT-5 in it, Paul pumped the brake lever to bleed the lines one more time just to be sure that all the old fluid and air was out. | 
Moving on to the rear caliper, the rear pads were removed by taking out the two center pad-keeper bolt pins. | 
Here you can see that the pad on the right is new, while the pad on the left is worn out and almost down to the steel backing plate. |
Just as with the front brakes, we wanted to replace the old DOT-5 from the master cylinder and fill the lines with fresh fluid. To help speed things up, the banjo bolt was removed to bleed out the master cylinder and the brake line before being refilled with new DOT-5 fluid. | 
The fresh DOT-5 was pumped though the line until all the old fluid and air bubbles were out of the line. At the same time as the pedal was pushing fluid though the line, it was important to notice how fast the pressure was building back up. If you can still push the pedal all the way down with the bleeder tightened, then you may have a leak, so check and tighten all fittings on your brake system. | 
Finally, all the calipers and rotors were washed off with brake cleaner. Then a short test ride was performed. Before you pull out, check and pump the brakes and start out slowly. Let the new pads warm up a bit before you just hit the gas. Be safe, be smart, and enjoy the ride. |