Bradders, You must have a vice-like grip. I have to disagree with you on this occasion, I currently have 3 Ducs in my garage & a friend's GS. It's only my V4 that I can pull the lever back to the bars on, I don't want this to sound like I'm bragging but having owned several multis previously, I've never had one of them with such a poor feel to the lever, crap rear break absolutely, booked into my dealers shortly so fingers crossed we find a solution, if not its back to a twin for me.
When we say ‘back to the bar’ I mean it sill just touch when pulled hard in. Normally set at mid point lever position. When I wind out, for track or very fast road riding normally, it will barely touch or not at all. All depends where the lever is set. Except gixers: put what you like in those and they all come back to bar after 3 or 4 laps of a track!!
I've not had excessive travel on the brake lever but on 3 or 4 occasions Ive had something strange happen with the front brakes. Each occasion it was very similar circumstances. Riding 2 up full luggage approaching a roundabout light to moderate braking with front brake, speed down to about 30mph from 60 ish. Then the front brake lever seemed to go solid and if pushed back a little but not like when ABS kicks in and the brakes were acting like I'd really squeezed them but I'd applied no extra pressure. Hasn't happened for a while and only happened in first month of ownership but I've never experienced anything like it before. The brakes on both the demo bike and mine aren't the sharpest I've ever used which is strange as they should be great. Has anyone put different pads in the front and / or rear calipers? I like brakes with good initial bite and plenty of stopping power when needed where these have little initial bite and so so stopping power which I don't think is just down to a bit of extra weight more likely a less abrasive pad compound.
