you can manually move the SMC. The caliper bracket pushes it in when the brakes are applied.
Add linked brakes?
- Thread starter Alberto
- Start date
- Status
Yep, I got that. But the manual states to bleed the rear caliper rear bleed valve (so the outer pistons), you pump the brake pedal, loosen valve etc. But unless i'm misunderstanding, pumping the brake pedal will do nothing for that outer pistons. Makes no mention of having to manually move the front caliper bracket - nor did the post I quoted. So I'm just confused as to how its possible
Personally most of the roads I ride are Mountain highways ,and never have I felt the need for linked brakes or Abs . Having said that, practice your braking often and yes you can brake into a corner , just be smooth on the apply. More front brake tends to stand the bike up , rear drops it into the corner, Both together slow the bike down without much lean angle change.
Ps I have 4 decades of Mountain riding (on pavement) without falling off the road. Personally loose gravel in a corner is more of a problem.
Ps I have 4 decades of Mountain riding (on pavement) without falling off the road. Personally loose gravel in a corner is more of a problem.
Have a look at this schematic:
The two completely hydraulically separated circuits you are talking about are the front lever circuit and the rear pedal circuit.
The front reservoir feeds the front four outers. That's it. When you activate the front, the only lines the front MC will pressurize are the front outers. Nothing else.
All others are all fed from the rear reservoir, they are on the same "rear" circuit (that includes the middle fronts!)
When not moving, the SMC will not engage when applying the rear. The pressure from the rear pedal will be applied to the back side of the SMC" MC seal, which will let it by (the seal doesn't hold pressure from the back side, that's how you can flush the system) and pressurize the rear outers (which would have been activated by the SMC if you were moving), on top of the direct activation of the inner one.
Here is the authoritative doc on this.
Last edited:
That's not a warning, it's bragging!
Maybe on the 1100.
Not on the 1300.
Have a look at the schematic to convince yourself.
Incase you wanted to ride it, the highway is #12 between Lytton and Lillooet B.C. and I aggree it's Bragging
I have no doubt that making these changes will alter the braking of your 1100. I would like to see what the improvement was from each of these changes, preferably independent of the others. Granted, testing each change would be onerous, but it is the only way to quantify the difference.
I for one am gulity of feeling my bike 'feels better' after a routine maintenance job. Obviously, (to me on a cognitive level) changing oil, fluids, checking electrical connections, cleaning caliper pistons, etc. has little effect on the bike's performance. Emotionally, however, it sure does.
Cleaning and resealing my calipers didn't make the bike stop any faster , but sure lighted up how much I had to squeeze the lever.
You are dead-on correct, it is hard to assign a performance change to a specific input when you make more than one input together. Just yesterday I dedided to upgrade the brakes on my 1999 VFR800 as I felt they were a bit light on "grab" and needed some better pads. Turns out that the sliding pins on the right calliper were seized and immovable. I went ahead and freed those up and relubed them, and added the new pads. The brake performance was greatly improved, but was it the new pads, the freed-up calliper or the combination....?
Having said that, my changes on the 1100 were iterative. I did the pads first, then the VFR master, and finally the braided lines. The pads gave some more grab but still felt wooden. The smaller master gave much better leverage over the pads but felt a little squishy on the old rubber lines. The braided lines took most of the squish out and finally gave the brake feel that I wanted.
To do that you'd have to plug the lines to the middle front pistons, so the SMC doesn't engage when pressing the pedal.
But what would be the point? All the pedal would do then is engage the rear middle and you'd lose a lot of braking power.
This is easy enough to do when the brakes are not linked! Your foot provides great variable proportioning, which is often nice to have, especially in the mountains....
You say you do not want the rear linking, but this is mainly why LBS was introduced, to help some coming from cruisers with the bad habit of stomping on the rear only. If you don't want rear linking, you probably don't really want LBS.
If you are reasonably good at braking, no need for LBS and all its additional headaches including possible rear lock-up which could send you over a cliff in the mountains!
I didn't imagine that technically, linking brakes (LBS) is quite complicated. I agree that it is reasonable to upgrade to the next version of the ST rather than customizing something or replacing the entire brake system.
I just wanted to say that I don't have problems with braking while riding the motorcycle. However, I've encountered situations when riding uphill and stopping for any reason, keeping the motorcycle upright becomes difficult. This is because I need to apply the rear brakes, as the front wheel becomes lightened when going uphill, and the motorcycle starts skidding backward even with the front wheel locked. During these moments, both my feet are usually occupied trying to balance the motorcycle.
I thought that linked brakes would provide assistance in these situations. Having some proportion of the braking force on the fully loaded rear wheel from the front lever would prevent the motorcycle from skidding..
I just wanted to say that I don't have problems with braking while riding the motorcycle. However, I've encountered situations when riding uphill and stopping for any reason, keeping the motorcycle upright becomes difficult. This is because I need to apply the rear brakes, as the front wheel becomes lightened when going uphill, and the motorcycle starts skidding backward even with the front wheel locked. During these moments, both my feet are usually occupied trying to balance the motorcycle.
I thought that linked brakes would provide assistance in these situations. Having some proportion of the braking force on the fully loaded rear wheel from the front lever would prevent the motorcycle from skidding..
As you know now, once stopped, LBS does nothing for you when you pull the front lever in as the SMC requires forward motion to engage.
What you'd need for that would be a separate handbrake (thumb brake) to activate the rear. They are available but I haven't heard of anybody having installed one on the ST yet. You could be the first.
What can help in a pinch on steep uphill with front locked and skidding backwards (you'll probably be in first gear by then), is to kill the engine and let the clutch out.
Last edited:
Just don't stop!
Andrew Shadow
Site Supporter
While true, as long as the brakes have not been released after coming to a stop the SMC will maintain the pressure that it applied to the rear brake during braking to come to a stop. Once the brake pressure has been released, the rear brake can not be pressurized again via the SMC until there is forward motion. If you stop on a steep up hill grade and will need rear brake pressure to maintain control, don't release the brakes after having come to a stop. The problem is that it is not always easy to predict in advance that you will need to do this.
....and that on the steep inclines he was struggling on (to the point of fighting for his balance with feet of the pegs), he may not have had to use any braking at all to come to a stop or so little that whatever SMC pressure might remain trapped is not sufficient to stop sliding back.
Crazy idea ,run a cable from the handlebars down to the foot lever ,would have to make a bracket to attach some how .
Can relate to the problem of doing a u turn at the end of a mountain road with a 1000 lb loaded St1100 ,turn radius is a noticeable amount wider the my Gl500i .
I do have to stop carrying so much stuff with me
I do have to stop carrying so much stuff with me
What you are talking about here is not really linking, but more like hand activation of the rear brake. No need for the more complex LBS for that. There are commercially available rear hand brake kits (with added left thumb lever) and they could be easier to install than a LBS conversion.
Am not familiar with the 1100, but I would suspect it has only 2 pistons per caliper (don't really see the use for 3 without LBS), so the additional rear brake lever would give you full braking power on the rear, by activating all calipers, vs only 2 out of 3 in a LBS configuration. So you would be even better off here with your non LBS version!
Here is an example of conversion, replacing the rear MC with a dual MC to accommodate the front line activation. This is top end but there are options.
Last edited:
- Status