There is so much excitement when we take delivery of a new motorcycle. Everything is so clean, shiny, and new! I don’t know about the rest of you, but all the paperwork that goes with it bores me so. It is necessary, and part of the process of acquiring and owning the new bike. But all I really have on the brain is, “Where is the key?”
Recently, I took delivery of a 2022 Yamaha YZF-R7. I had preordered it directly from Yamaha within the first 15 minutes or so after it went live on their website back in May. According to conversations with Yamaha Motor USA, I managed to secure 1 of only 150 preorder units allotted for the United States. It's a good thing I did, as they were all claimed in about 8 hours.
It is blue. Well, It is purple. Well, it's neither really… My daughter, upon seeing the bike, pointed out how it is neither of those, but something striking and in between. She called it, “Blurple.” She’s even gone so far as to name the bike Blurpy. I’m not sure about the name quite yet.
Because she just graduated from trade school to become a licensed cosmetologist, I should probably take her word for it. I don’t quite yet understand how a license for studying space and the stars has helped her so much with regard to colors and style! Regardless, I’m going with that freshly minted color name of “Blurple.”
Anyway, I did eventually get my hands on that key. I geared up and set out for home.
Most times when we pick up a new bike, we are told to be careful riding home due to the new tires needing to be scrubbed in a bit, keep the engine below a certain RPM, and not to ask too much from it for a certain number of miles. Obviously, the things we are to be careful of are not limited to these.
That first ride home is the beginning of a honeymoon with us and our new machine. Mcrider has this idea in some of its videos. Its a little perilous, as we have no familiarity, nor muscle memory to help us work with the motorcycle along our way home.
A mile or two up the road I needed to slow and come to a stop, so I reached out to use the front brake and added a little pressure to the rear brake for good measure. To my surprise, I was met with much less brake power than I was expecting.
Fortunately, I was already taking it easy, and not going very fast, and had some engine braking helping me out. So the bike and I still slowed to a safe stop… albeit with my heart beating a little faster than a few moments prior.
Past experience has taught me to expect brakes to be a little weak at the start of their lifespan. In some cases, the brakes have had enough usable power at the beginning. But today, I experienced the weakest initial brakes of any new bike I’d ridden. It was a good experience to go through that serves as a reminder for the future.
Brakes seem to be somewhat less spoken of at delivery of a new motorcycle, well at least in my experience it is. The brakes need some miles of mild to moderate usage to wear themselves into each other (a process often called “bedding the brakes in”) to work effectively for their lifespan. Every bike is going to be a little different at the start. Small variances in manufacturing processes, such as the resulting finish left on the brake rotors’ surfaces, contribute to how well initially the brake pads can get a bite on the rotors.
If you look closely, you can see a subtle visual difference where a lot of the marks/lines from the manufacturing process are now gone. The brake pads and rotors now match up to each other much better, and thus the pads get a much better bite on the rotor. More friction can then be generated and thus the bike’s speed can be better arrested. The brakes are then ready to do their job and convert kinetic motion ultimately to heat that is dissipated to the atmosphere.
As mentioned above, bedding in the brakes takes a little time and miles to do. If we try to be too aggressive with the brakes at first when bedding them in, we can glaze the surface of the brake pads and they won’t be able to deliver the performance they should from that point forward. We should take our time with this during the break-in period, and we’ll have far better results.
There is always something new to learn about motorcycles. Sometimes even small details contain lessons to be learned. Keep this in mind to avoid any surprises with your new brakes, whether it’s on a new bike, or just from replacing old pads and rotors with new ones. Now get on out there and Enjoy The Ride!
Coach Bob
EnjoyTheRideMC
NH, USA
