kebrider
Active Member
I believe you're right about the pads glazing JD. I had a similar problem with one of my 6th gen VFRs but I cured them by cleaning the rotor and installing new pads. I tried EBC's and they had an even rougher feel than the OEM. They had a little better initial bite until they overheated and then they felt about the same. I overwork the brakes occasionally riding with sport bikes in the hills. I am on my 4th set of pads and I did a solid job of cleaning/prepping the rotor between pad sets but the roughness was always there with the oem rotor.Your oem pads are probably glazed and is probably the main culprit in your issue. Put on some EBC HH pads or EBC Road Race pads and you'll be much happier. I ride my 2016 NC hard on long trips through twisty mountain roads on stock brakes without issue, although, I can tell at around 12k miles, the oem pads are nearing the end of their life and will be replaced with EBC in the near future. I also do trackdays on my other 2013 NC, which is a dedicated track bike now, on road course tracks at an advanced pace on stock brakes other than the EBC Road Race pads on the front only. Had EBC HH pads on front only, then swapped to the Road race pads after they glazed and was a significant improvement. The NC's braking system is quite sufficient so long as you maintain fresh fluid and good pads. Although steel braided lines are a good modification too. The main reason that sportbikes have dual front brakes is that they are designed to slow down to cornering speeds from much higher speeds than the NC is capable of, in environments that the NC is not designed for, aka road course tracks. However, the NC can be made to be quite capable on track, too.
I wore out my original front pads at 7,200 miles and went to EBC. The braking was so rough I changed the first set of EBCs out for another set of EBCs and spent a great deal of time cleaning the rotor, but still got the same result. I then did another deep clean of the rotor and installed oem pads and same result. I had about 400 miles on the oem pads when I installed the new rotor and lines and I didn't clean them even though they had felt terrible with the old rotor. The first couple of stops were longish and I wondered if I made a mistake reusing the old pads but one good run bedded things in and the performance has been great ever since. I brake hard and I rarely use the rear brake. My modified front forks perform well under hard braking and give excellent feel while trail braking so I make up for a lack of go by using quite a bit of last second whoa.
The oem rotor was usually a pretty deep shade of blue as I gave up riding sport bikes without fully giving up sport riding. The NC can't keep up with truly hard ridden sport bikes but it keeps a respectable pace, sufficient to safely wear the sides bald on a set of Q3+'s in less than 1,500 miles. I recently bought a new Triumph Tiger Sport 660, another budget adv style bike, that is much better suited to sport riding, though it is still not going to keep up with very well ridden sport bikes. The Triumph and Honda are so very different. The NC is still my favorite, though my heavily modified CRF250L is so close it's practically a dead heat. I really enjoy my budget Hondas and they both have aftermarket rotors on them.