Had a great day at Silverstone yesterday after a very wet start. Was great to get the 1199 on track where it performed brilliantly. The only issue I had was with the brakes. The lever feels constantly soft. I have bled the brakes however a few people have said that this type of brake feel is due to the ABS and most ABS fitted bikes are like this. I haven't ever ridden a bike with ABS before so have nothing to compare it to. My last bikes (GSXR) had rock solid lever feel, is this a characteristic of the Panigale?
Nope mine never felt soft , the opposite very sharp plenty of bite brembo pads , never had to bleed system either
i was also there riding in the middle group. turns out the Akro full system is too loud even with baffles.
Haha, I saw you there, gotta admit it did sound lovely, I thought you were riding without the baffles in!!!! How's your lever feel, is it soft?
Mines feels good still nice and sharp, very little lever movement, how i like it. i was told by one of the instructors there was a Panigale running without baffles. apparently i was "giving it death" though. 108.2Db on the ride by
My lever is also soft, brakes work fine though. I have bled & changed fluid with no difference. I was at BSB this weekend and was in the garage of 2 Tri Option bikes. 1 lever hard and 1 soft both bikes maintained by the same person and no explanation as to why this was the case, the only difference is that the one with the firm lever had standard levers fitted and the soft lever one had aftermarket levers fitted, my bike has genuine Ducati aftermarket folding levers. No idea why the lever would make the difference, doesn't make sense to me.....for further investigation.
There are only two reasons that a lever could be softer in my experience. Either still some air in the system or the type of brake pads used.
I can only see it being air in the system. I do not think the pad material would matter as I cannot see it compressing to give a spongy feeling. I think the pad material is more likely to contribute to braking performance. I also had a soft lever on my BMW S1000rr and I changed out the brake master cylinder (Nissan) to a Brembo RCS19 and the problem was resolved, likewise no idea why, maybe more pressure (bigger piston) from the Brembo pump masking some air in the system ? I'm going down to Moto Rapido on Monday and it's one of the questions I have for Wilf.
Can you keep us posted on his thoughts? I'm considering getting a Brembo RCS had one on my old trackbike and it was excellent.
Bled the master cylinder tonight which I hadn't done before. Has definitely made a (positive) difference. I had only bled the calipers before and hadn't thought about bleeding the M/C. Going to bleed the whole system again on the weekend to see if I can get it any firmer.
No problem with my set up. Castrol SRF fluid and Performance Friction 13 pads. Quick question for the noise on the day, Did any of you get black flagged for ride by and did they do a static ???? Cheers
No one got black flagged that I'm aware. They did offer a static test after the safety briefing if you thought you were borderline. I have a full system and had the baffles in. Another guy in my garage just had the silencers and had no baffles. TBH they seemed pretty relaxed about it although this was a trackday run by Silverstone rather than run by a 3rd party.
I didn't get black flagged as such, I have the full akro system. The Db meter is above the start/finish line with a camera that takes a photo if it breaks the noise limit. My ride by was 108.2db. The marshal came up with a printout with the photo and noise reading and we did a static test which my bike failed. I was told by the marshal that there are Db meters in Silverstone village that send a message to the circuit if they were set off. As it was blowing in that direction I believe these may have been set off. I think as long as the bikes don't set these village meters off they're not too bothered about the noise limits.
Nope, one of the instructors pleaded with the marshal to let me carry on but no luck. I did 4 sessions before they found me.
Kuba's BSB bike front brake lever was solid...different Brembo pump, not sure what it was but it looked a bit special (felt the same as my BMW one did once I changed to RCS 19 pump). The Superstock bike had standard pump and lever felt "soft", or so I thought, it was the same as mine. Steve reckoned it was fine. Good enough for SS then good enough for me. Davy
I've only just discovered this thread. Winding the lever out definitely firms up the feel considerably. In 2500 miles I bled the calipers and master cylinder twice. Fearing either the m/c or the fluid was goosed I bled them again yesterday to little avail. Today I decided to wind out the lever (ducati performance levers) and hey presto - lever feel as firm as you like.
