Learn more from Ari on Common Tread: rvz.la/2S5yOFk

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="200">3:20</a> Ari clearly already running steel lines in his forearms.

Revzilla presents: Keeping It 100% with Ari Henning.

If Ari of all peoples tells me I should first and foremost practice my braking skills, then he's probably right.

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="61">1:01</a> Zach: Battle Toad, slow down Battle Toad: We don't do that here

This is one of the best breakdowns on gradual brake upgrades and rider self improvement I've seen. Simple, informative, and straight to the point. Thank you Ari and RevZilla!

This is gonna sound weird, but I MASSIVELY upgraded my brakes by getting gloves that fit my hand better. I can actually cover the brakes while I ride and I can feel what I'm doing better than when I had overly bulky gloves.

The last part about making sure we are at our best is so critical! I remember listening to a rider in full racing garb, on a gorgeous bike going on about the huge amounts he had spent to lighten it as much as possible, while ignoring the extra 30-40lbs he was carrying above his belt. It makes a difference.

Ari’s content is why I feel comfortable working on my bike

Loved this! It felt very grounded and to be honest, it was refreshing that a video from a site that lives to sell things is explaining that certain types of parts practically are not needed for most people.

Great content. Both on the technical, easy to understand for fools like me and also comes with proper advice. Thumbs up!

As new rider (6 months), that last point on 'upgrading the rider' is just so important. I love riding any time but I also love getting into the cap parks and practicing the safety and manoeuvring skills provided on the many brilliant KZfaq channels available. I've learnt so much about myself as well the bike. Highly highly recommend investing time in yourself.

As always, a well thought out video. It amazes me how many people don't know changing brake fluid is a maintenance item. Even though it's a "closed" system, moisture still gets in there from heat cycling and it's worse if you're in a humid area. I change my brake fluid about every 2 years, about when it starts noticeably changing color. That's the same schedule I use for my 4 wheeled vehicles. It's amazing how much better a hydraulic system works when it's got good fluid in it!

If Revzilla puts out a calendar, i expect the battle toad to be featured

Flew to CA and borrowed my friend's beat-up bike for the next few weeks, and the front lever felt really squishy. Did a bleed yesterday but was still felt that the brakes were weak and got it from "unrideable" to "much better, but still not perfect". I took it out in the twisties and had to switch to 3 finger braking because the lever kept on hitting my finger when I pulled it in. Gonna do a second round of bleeding today and ordered a set of sintered pads because there isn't a lot of meat left on these guys. This video couldn't have come out at a better time!

Back when I had my FZ8 I upgraded the pads with carbone lorraine XBK pads, put on spiegler braided lines and ran Motul RBF600 fluid. My God what a night and day difference!! The factory pads were the biggest limiting factor though. They honestly felt like they were made of wood. The lines definitely firmed up the lever feel though.

I got a 2017 R3 as my first motorcycle. At the end of 2019, I decided I needed something fun. After months of riding, I realized my front master cylinder had a small hairline crack where the lever is installed. I bought a new OEM Yamaha master cylinder, Vortex levers along with EBC sintered pads. Not only did the new master cylinder and levers feel better, but the sintered pads made a HUGE difference. I haven't done any track days but I do have some nice roads nearby I explore with some casual speed. What a difference it made switching to better pads. Great video as always. I always get excited at a new Revzilla video. Seriously, you guys do amazing work. I hope I can meet some of you someday and chat about our 2 wheeled obsessions:D

Yes!! Another installment of The Shop Manual and covering a topic I really need for my ZG1000! 👍

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="363">6:03</a> I would hazard to say this piece of advice applies to all aspects of knowing/getting the most out of your motorcycle. A certain austrian rider and his skills and understanding of his "unimpressive" old cb500 comes to mind, while keeping up with a lot more advanced and expensive bikes, on hard alpine twisties.

Been spending my afternoon reading through my Kawasaki GTR 1000 shop manual! Love to have this show as well to help explain things so clearly 👍

The last pointer was the most important! Great video!

Three things that are also very important. Tire quality, tire pressure and shocks. All of them also affect braking! Nice video 👍

Forgot one important thing. I would stick this after ss lines to remove that potential source of line sponge. If the lever is spongy no matter how much you bleed it, AND it is really hard to push the piston(s) back, you might need to rebuild the caliper. Its pretty easy to do and relatively inexpensive too and also makes a night and day difference if your symptoms match up.

Ive been through all the perils off self maintaining my sportsbikes but the way you break it down is greatly appreciated for the next gen 💪

Great info, and yes the limiting factor is usually the loose nut behind the handle bars.

Ari, we all appreciate the straight honest answer you put out into motorcycleverse. Cheers happy riding my friend.

Always appreciate TSM Ari! I've learned more from you and Zach than basically anyone.

I wish Ari and Zach would make about a thousand more video's. Myself and probably everyone else out there would watch them at least a couple times. They offer a wealth of info wether it be basic or advanced and unlike just about everyone else on KZfaq, They aren't annoying. Thanks!

Perfect video for what I was looking for. Got an HD XG750. Already got new brake pads installed, steel lines on the way. Wanted to find out if I should invest in a new master cylinder, and this video answered that question for me. Great work!

Happy to see your wing is moving freely again! 👍 Practice..indeed

Absolutely perfect advice! I've rebuilt my calipers, installed braided lines and updated my pads. I need to grease the brake lever pivot and replace the caliper pad pins (annoyingly not part of the rebuild kit) Also need to practice hard braking - scary but essential!! Love the look of that RCS master but it's soooo pricey!

This video is gold. Especially the last minute or so in the parking lot. Thank you.

Ari u are a gem man . i know this stuff but ur explanations just make things better. Gonna do what you said freshen up those braking skills

100% on the practice. I thought it was hard to do stoppies, but after, only acouple braking sessions a week for a few weeks, it was easy to learn.

Well done and informative, glad you stressed the cost/benefit ratio and the recommendations at each level. Thanks subscribed!

Just the content I was looking for! Thanks for the awesome video with great info. I’m definitely looking to get steel braided lines soon.

I'm a bit late to this re-visited party. I always loved MC-Garage, watch it just because I enjoy it sometimes. And it's fantastic that this became a thing on Revzilla as well. You're doing a great job Ari! I fixed brake fluid, oil change, coolant change, replaced my chain and my rear tire with your helpful tips. Owning a MT10SP since this spring this video makes me feel like you're keeping tabs on me, I might have to upgrade my brakes on that thing. :D

Great video - I'd add to this to pull apart your calipers and check the seals. I did this recently, and cleaned out a lot of sludge from behind the pistons. I polished up the pistons etc, and they feel a lot better.

Good content, Ari. A video on diagnosing common issues with brakes would be nice along with a brake rebuild guide.

Some simple honest advice in this video,,makes a change from someone promoting a product,,massive thanks👍

Yes replacing brake lines on my buddy’s MT09 took forever and required practically complete disassembly of the bike but the feel and responsiveness is night and day better than my MT09 brakes now

Love this man, not like that but as a teacher,

Thanks for this video. I don't know how to ride yet,but knowing this information helps before I get on my first bike.

Love the last tip, got to work on that. Only ever felt the abs twice.

Nice job explaining MC brake system and service.

As always 💗 nice to see you and absorb the information...

Ooooo, that last one is super true. I stay at the limit of my brakes and bin my bikes quite frequently. Nothing like knowing where the edge is at

Happy any time Battletoad features in these videos! Sound advice thank you - might swap the brake line on my moped for safety.

Great video. Thanks for spreading knowledge.

Great practical advice, well presented. Thanks.

Ooh! Great info! Thanks, Ari.

Always informative! Thanks Ari!

Awesome video, as always !

Totally agree with the work on skill but had to use what ever was available last weekend due to a crash in a race busting my master Cylinder and needed to get it replaced before next race, now have a radial “Braking” master and dang that thing feels sublime 👌

The last point is the most important. I used to work in the bike industry and was lucky enough to ride alongside pros who could ride old clapped out stock standard OEM POS bikes way faster than 99% of people could on the latest and greatest with all the upgrades. It's very humbling.

With Ari on Revzilla channel, this turned into my top 3 favourite motorcycle channel. So much great advise and information

Good video Ari!

@<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="373">6:13</a> Is no one gonna give huge kudos to the editing here? Ari speaking seamlessly while Battle Toad instantly appears back in frame multiple times??

I have done everything for a street rider as per this video, thank you.

Sage advice from Sensei Ari as always.

Very true, our bike's original brake has already plenty of stopping power, unless the part worn out then can consider replace with upgrade.

Revzilla, please do more videos with Ari!

Hey Revzilla, just want touch on the brake pad upgrade. I was actually told by Galfer that unless you are running a track bike, they do not recommend their sintered brake pads for the Rear. This is do to having a really strong bite that can lock up the rear on a strong press, which is an all too common situation that can happen during commuting and also off-roading. They recommend their semi-metallic pad for the rear instead. Which gives a more progressive stop yet still better than OEM.

Steel brake lines make a huge difference , well worth it even with abs , might be the best upgrade period for a bike , especially sportbikes ,imo , but as always you videos are on point 👍

Great video mate, very insightful. I'm going to practice in a car park.

Thanks Ari ! You are always a shining star in the motorcycling world 👍😎 I upgraded the brake lines on my 2019 CB1000R with Japanese made stainless steel ones. Swapped OEM brake pads with Daytona (Japanese brand) cintered ones, also swapped the OEM fluid with Motul RBF600 ! Feels like a feather at the lever & it stops like a Cat before it hits the pond 😹

Great advice as you’ll runout of experience before the brakes are taxed ! Keep the great advise coming 🏍

Nice... I'm a big fan of empty parking lot practice; which might sound nerdy/boring, but I think it's fun: Slow speed handling skills, braking drills with abs both on and off, etc.✌️

Another great upgrade on bikes of this type ie SV650 et al, is find a compatible s/h complete front end like an USD GSXR 600/750. Better forks and waaay better brakes. Any bike i ever buy for myself, first upgrade is stainless brake lines throughout. Great vlog as per.

I bought used Ducati and the brakes were horrible!! After I refreshed the system and lubed the pivots, It was totally blessed😇 These really are essential things that most people look over.

Perfect timing for me lol. About to do my front brakes next month 😂!!!!

Great. The last part is especially important. Try to find the "fault" with the user before trying to find one with the machine may net faster results.

Excellent video, super high quality and top notch content!! 😁👍😎💯

Prof. Ari "Swole" Henning at it again !!!

Very well said Ari 👏

The feel of stainless lines is just so addicting.

For those with an older GSXR 750 that came with plain rubber lines. I’ve rode a number of bikes and my GSXR felt horrible on my first day leaving the dealer. Upgraded the lines that week. Made all the difference I needed. So, if you just have rubber lines, replace them first and see the difference.

Great brakedown

Well said. Rian well said , stay well

<a href="#" class="seekto" data-time="380">6:20</a> sweet woolie :-P

Am I the only one who *really* likes the look of that stripped Superleggera?

When the time comes to replace your rotors might just as well upgrade them... Brembo is hardly more expensive than most oem honda parts in my experience.

i really admire your journalism skills...Keep it real bro,you impress me with your purity on your videos and subjects,when everybody else try to be good with companies to give them more bikes to present.If your journalism was music,it would be hard rock!

Thank you

Nice video! I'm still going out to upgrade the brakes on my tiny R15 xD

Very informative. Thx

Great review 👍🏻

Spot on!

Excellent!

Another great video !

small note for more experienced wrenchers, splitting the calipers to inspect, clean and refurb the calipers and pistons does wonders, sticky pistons will rob you of overall brake power and make the pads wear less even, also, brake fluid comes in many different ratings, dot 4, dot 5, dot 5.1, but personnaly i prefer motul rbf660 since it has an insane dry boiling point compared to dot4, after switching i never had brake fade again, and i'm running steel braided lines, brembo rcs19 and brembo RC pads (yes those are the carbon ones) on a 2005 R1, sure i'm not squeezing every ounce of potential out of the brakes but it stops on a friggin dime.

Such perfect advice, younger riders please listen.

One ☝️ other cheap brake upgrade that has worked for all my bikes is a high performance brake fluid, in my case I use castrol reactive brake fluid. Yes 👍 you did say about replacing old fluid but not with high performance . I have also upgraded brakes with braided lines and calliper upgrades with adopter plates .

Thanks Ari.... I have been led to understand that when changing brake fluid you should never use a previously opened bottle (talking about storage of many months to a year or two). Something about condensation contaminating the fluid I believe. But this leads to a whole lot of unused brake fluid being disposed of at every fluid change. I would be grateful for your take on this. Thank you much!

I put a Brembo RCS master cylinder on every bike that doesn’t already have radial master cylinders already. SO much better!

Another interesting point, for some reductant but for other very important! If you are a home mechanic like a majority of the bikers around, be sure that whenever you remove and reinstall your front wheel, you tie everything as stated in the owners manual with the right torques. Especially the pinch bolts and the caliber bolts! For me, on my KTM 790 Duke, it changed the entire feeling of my front brake ones I straightened the fork legs and tied everything down with my new torque wrench to the specified torque. Brakes feel like new whilst a week ago I was thinking of buying new calipers. It might be something you would like to try if you feel as if your brake feel is off. :)

Thanks for the truth’s over myths. Skills of the rider make a bike. The bike does not make the rider. The bike offers the tools but the rider must practice to make the most of those tools. Great video.

Pratice pratice pratice Well said Based on many years instruction in parachuting, marksmanship, flying and trucking Most people will spend big dollars on "Stuff" but little time to fully utilize the full potential of the equipment they already have

I've had a pretty similar situation on my 2011 ER6F (exact same brake setup as this versys) I started with a caliper rebuild (+fluid and lubing up pivots) this immediately gave it such a massive improvement that now I immediately rebuild the brakes on any bike I own as it's so cheap to do and it's a DRAMATIC increase in feel and performance. (2 front calipers on those tokico calipers cost around 25-30 bucks). Then I replaced those over the fender rubber lines with 2 straight full length braided cables. These gave a noticeable improvement but not as much as rebuilding the caliper, it was more consistency especially near the end of the travel. Then when time came to replace the disc I replaced them with EBC XC Contour Floating Discs. Very very nice discs at a relatively affordable price (300 bucks for the set up front). I've gone through a few iterations of pads before I settled on the SBS 705SP pads (highest performance "street" compound) and they are a match made in heaven with the EBC discs. They provide amazing feel, immediate response, and no warm up period whilst also not fading after heavy use. At this point I wanna point out that I ran the HH pads from EBC before this, BUT and this is VERY important to consider: They take waaaaayy too long to heat up. On the street the first few brakings are akin to praying for the bike to stop. Even when riding for a while, if you haven't been in a corner or haven't been pushing the brakes they are mediocre at best. The HH pads only get up to performance if you really go from corner to corner with heavy braking, when they are hot, they are amazing, but 90% of the time they are way worse than the SBS pads. The SBS pads don't have as high peak performance but they retain that high performance over a much much wider range. If the SBS starts at 70% braking performance peaks at 90% and falls off to 80% then the HH by comparison starts at 20% peaks at 100% and falls off to 90%, but it spends the majority of it's street time below 50%. The braking performance I got out of those 2 pot tokicos with a few upgrades is better than the old-new R1 brakes (2015-2019 models). And I know those were relatively controversial brakes from the get go, but if Yamaha supplies those brakes on a 15k+ 1000cc supersport, you can only imagine how good my setup was on a 650 twin. Done the same on the rear brakes and they are about on par with the best rear brakes I've ever used (S1000XR, KTM 1290 SA)

I love the battleturd. Have a thing for booger green.