Re: Rear brake pads toasted - 2K miles???
It's probably tough to spec brake drag by how far the wheel rotates when spun by hand. If I really give it a hard shove, it might make it around a full turn, but if I'm at all half-hearted about it, it stops in a half-turn or so. And I'd bet the main drag in a normal system is from the final drive and transmission, so it probably matters if the gear and transmission oil are cold.
I guess over the years one develops a sense for this sort of thing (particularly when spinning wheels while lubing chains on chain-drive bikes) and I can tell my brakes aren't dragging. I think you can tell more just by turning the wheel slowly and sensing whether there is undue resistance and brake noise. You may hear a very slight scraping noise, but nothing very pronounced or loud.
On non-linked-brake bikes, a simple brake drag test was to go ride, not use the rear brake, and check to see if the disc was cool after riding a bit. Perhaps on the S10, one could simulate this by riding awhile and coast to a stop without using the brakes. (Obviously, an uphill stopping zone would be optimal.)
I think we've had a few instances on this forum of premature rear brake wear but I don't recall what the final outcomes were. My experience when I taught MSF was that many students, particularly experienced riders, were heavy rear brake users without even realizing it. And given the relative sizes of the discs on a bike like the S10, it is very easy to overheat the rear disc if you start asking for it to provide the majority of the stopping power and an overheated brake will wear very quickly. So the tendency in these situations is to immediately chalk it up to rider error, but you never know.... something could be wrong. In any event, with the S10's linked system, there really is no need in normal conditions to use the rear brake pedal at all. Yamaha has this pretty well-sorted and except for an unusual circumstance (e.g., going down a steep gravel driveway), I don't see a good reason not to just let the system do its thing.
- Mark