Improving brake performance

I have found the brakes on my 2014 ES underpowered and generally poor compared to every other moto I have owned. Is this an issue with the Super Tenere, or does mine need some brake tuning?

I have flushed the brake fluid (no appreciable improvement). The pads have a lot of thickness left in them, but I have not pulled them to see their brand. The rotors look to be in great shape. It came with PSR shorty levers; could this be a source of the issue?

I'm leaning toward replacing the pads to see if that helps improve the braking power. Does anyone have any feedback on the EBC Double-H Sintered pads? Is there a better option out there?

Again, my goal is to improve the braking power for aggressive on/off-road riding.

Brakes on both of my Tenere’s have been excellent.
When the 2018 was brandnew the brakes didn’t seem to work as well as the previous 2013 but after a few hundred miles of use they improved a lot .

The single biggest brake upgrade you can do is to update from the factory rubber hoses to Braided Stainless Steel. This will improve feel and power transmission since they will not expand under braking pressure. This gets worse as the rubber gets older.
I sell a complete hose kit on my website (link below) and they are also available elsewhere.

I found the EBC HH pads give better initial bite and a more linear response to lever pressure than the OEM pads. Some say they’ll wear the rotor faster but the OEM front pads are also HH.

After switching pads on the ST1300 with near disastrous results, I don't switch anything from OE. I ride pretty aggressive and, so far, have not found the brakes to be lacking. I do know that pads and rotors MUST be compatible. (learned that with my truck) On paper, changing the brake lines to the braided stainless should make a difference. But when I switched to them on my FJ, I didn't feel any difference.

EBC FA380HH pads are your Huckleberry.

The first thing to mention is that "shorty" levers will affect the braking feel and force required to apply them.
You will have to use more finger-force due to them having less leverage on the master-cylinder.

The second is that when I went from exclusively riding my FJ1200 (which has phenomenal Brakes) to the XT1200, I noticed that the brakes did feel underpowered compared to what I was used to.
Switching to EBC HH Pads all around helped a bunch.
Initial bite and feel was much improved.......................However, the nature of the beast is that this bike has A TON of front-end dive and suspension movement under hard braking.
This took me time to get used to transitioning from one bike to the other...................She is definitely no sport-bike (although she does move quite well for her size)

I've mentioned to other people about my two bikes:
The FJ feels like you are riding a large Panther
The Super Tenere feels like you are riding an Ostrich

I don't ride dirt. Don't even really know if I could. But I don't imagine that a dirt bike with sport bike brakes would be a good thing, traction being just a tad bit different and all. And yeah, her booty gets so light that it almost feels like the beginning of a nose wheelie with all of the fork compression.

SkunkWorks said:

The first thing to mention is that "shorty" levers will affect the braking feel and force required to apply them.
You will have to use more finger-force due to them having less leverage on the master-cylinder.

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So you're saying I need to up my finger strength game

I find it slows down enough with downchanging you dont get that with a 4 CYL may be your more used to braking harder.

I tend to agree with WJBerterand that the EBC pads seemed to provide more stopping power than the OEM ones, but I didn't test that in any meaningful way and it might have just been confirmation bias.

I do firmly believe that they were way harder on the OEM rotor than the OEM pads were. I've only used the EBC pads once on the rear, replaced the rotor after using them because there was a hell of a lip on the rotor, and went back to OEM.

I'm tighter than a duck's ass, and I'll pinch pennies just for exercise, but OEM pads are my go-to when replacement time comes.

I don't have a wide range of experience with different brands of bikes, but the brakes on my 2014 S10 have never given me the feeling that they were lackluster. Then again, my previous bike was a 2012 V-Strom whose brakes were a frequent complaint amongst owners, and before that I rode a Harley Road King that weighed around the same as a small container ship and probably should have come equipped with a drag chute.

The performance of my brakes is low enough that I think there is an issue. The rear feels good, or as good as any rear brake, but I think there is an issue with the front. All joking aside about hand strength, I have tried testing my brakes multiple times at various speeds where I will grab as much brake as hard and as fast as possible, and the results are not what I would describe as violent. Yes, the bike will slow down and scrub speed rapidly, but I am not being pitched forward, no crazy fork dive; there is no risk of a stoppie or the front ABS engaging.

For example, my KTM 690, with a single front rotor, has massively better brake performance and feel, but to be fair, it weighs half as much as the Super Tenere. On my last BMW, a 2013 GS, if I grabbed all the brakes I could, I was at risk of being thrown over the bars if my body position wasn't right.

OP, I’m in complete agreement with you. Early on in my now 8 year Super Tenere ownership, I concluded that for me, the brakes were lacking. In short, when you asked for a bit more from the lever, it wasn’t there. I tried the EBC HH fronts and was and am still happy with the extra bite these pads give, when you ask for that bit more urgency.

As for disk wear, I changed to using EBC HH at 16421 miles and my bike now has 53654 miles on it, and there is NO noticeable wear. The pads however, do wear quicker than standard and require changing more often. A small and worthwhile sacrifice IMO.

I should add, I only ride tarmac, do loads and loads of mountain pass types roads and ride fairly aggressively, enjoying late braking when and where the conditions allow.

My heavily cupped front tire says she has plenty of braking power. And I, like fac191, use the heck out of her engine braking. My back pads went almost 25k miles.

Mad_Matt said:

The performance of my brakes is low enough that I think there is an issue. The rear feels good, or as good as any rear brake, but I think there is an issue with the front. All joking aside about hand strength, I have tried testing my brakes multiple times at various speeds where I will grab as much brake as hard and as fast as possible, and the results are not what I would describe as violent. Yes, the bike will slow down and scrub speed rapidly, but I am not being pitched forward, no crazy fork dive; there is no risk of a stoppie or the front ABS engaging.

For example, my KTM 690, with a single front rotor, has massively better brake performance and feel, but to be fair, it weighs half as much as the Super Tenere. On my last BMW, a 2013 GS, if I grabbed all the brakes I could, I was at risk of being thrown over the bars if my body position wasn't right.

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I'd consider checking you don't have a seized piston in one or both front calipers. Uneven wear of brake pads is an indicator of this. Its unlikely, given the age of the bike but not impossible. You are describing the brakes on a former bike I bought once. I stripped down the caliper and there was small rust spots, and pitting had occurred. New seals and pistons and a polish of the caliper and the brakes were transformed. Things like how often the brake fluid has been changed, if the bike has stood for long periods and if the bike has been ridden in extreme wet/snowy conditions can impact badly on brakes. It only takes small rust spots in the caliper to stop the piston moving as the tolerances are so close.

Dom

I have the shorty levers and my S10 will challenge the front abs anytime you ask it to. The calipers mount solid to the forks so you don't have a problem with any slider pins being froze up. Like Zigzag said, check to be sure a piston isn't froze up which would take away half your stopping power. Easy to check. To me, short of having some kind of weird master cylinder problem, that only leaves the brake pads. I would change them before doing anything else.

If you want, some time you can take mine for a spin to see if it feels any different than yours?
Other than mine needing the fluid flushed (It's been 4 or 5 years I think) I would consider the braking system to be about as sorted as it could ever be...........

I plan to pull the front end apart this weekend to replace the head stem bearings. While everything is apart I will check over the front calipers in greater detail and give them a thorough cleaning.

@SkunkWorks Once I get the front end back together in a few weeks, hopefully, the weather will be perfect, and we can meet up!

Mad_Matt said:

I plan to pull the front end apart this weekend to replace the head stem bearings. While everything is apart I will check over the front calipers in greater detail and give them a thorough cleaning.

@SkunkWorks Once I get the front end back together in a few weeks, hopefully, the weather will be perfect, and we can meet up!

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We can do that for sure!

my complaint is that the rear brake is softer when used alone, it seems better stronger more responsive when the front is used 1st.