Front Brake Pad Installation

Spoolboyy from the TotalRuckus forum created a photo tutorial of how to do this and it's helped tons! I used it this morning and completed the brake pad change for the front w/o any issues. Since his tutorial is already so complete, I didn't bother with any redundancy in the tutorial tips below. I took additional pics that he hadn't included and wanted to incorporate some other info I found helpful.

Firstly, a little note on buying brakes. I'm a little weary of buying them from ebay. I hear there are so many fake ones out there that haven't been regulated. I'm concerned these are unsafe. Although I bought the genuine TEIN springs for my car awhile back ago, I did find a fake made-in-china one on ebay that looked very real. They're cheaper but aren't tested and built to the standard of the real thing. TEIN's website confirmed fake ones indeed were found on the market. When it comes to performance and safety components, I'm avoiding the fake stuff. I picked up the EBC brakes from my shop directly and trust they're real. I saw what I suspected to be a generic one before so I'm pretty sure this is the good stuff in the pic below. The packaging is slightly different.

What tools did I use? I ended up not really needing the two ratchet sets. One was plenty. I had plenty of light so the flashlight wasn't used either. Vice grip was omitted from the installation too. It ended up not working for closing the caliper. The angle was too extreme once it got wide enough to pull the caliper closed.




Instead, I used a piece of wood I found laying around. I wanted to torque the loosened bolts back to spec, so that was needed too. Threadlock is also highly recommended.







Once the caliper was removed, I wanted to take a photo to be sure I was putting everything back together correctly. The back of the dirty pad is slipping.










Once the three 12mm bolts are removed, the L-bracket holding the brake pads slip out off the caliper itself. A metal tube slips it into place.







Can you tell I really did need to replace the brakes? Wow, that's nuts. The brake pad on the left is mostly the metal and not even the pad itself. I'm glad I changed the brakes today.







When you put the grease on the pads, be sure to put it on the correct side. I was stupid and put it on the actual ceramic side that touches the rotor. That's a big no-no. Here's a shot of where the grease needs to go. See the outline circle of where the caliper pushes the pad into the rotor?




When the caliper's removed from the rotor, the caliper is closed. We need to pull it back to compensate for the now new thicker pad. A c-clamp didn't work b/c it wasn't large enough (not mine at least). The vice grip isn't able to pull the caliper back in a parallel direction. Tough to explain. Just use a piece of wood and push the caliper in by hand.







I'm not sure why my photos are being uploaded sideways. Here are the new pads installed onto the L-bracket. Be sure to leave enough room btw the pads for the rotor! Yes, that's grease on the pads you see here in the pic.










Spoolboyy wasn't the only one that took a couple tries to get the pads installed on either side of the rotor. It's a squeeze with new pads since they're thicker and there's less space to work with.









Before putting the bolts back on, I wanted to use some threadlock to be sure these puppies stay put! You don't want bolts vibrating out while riding. Just squeeze some on the threads.






For those who want the torque specs, here they are straight from Yamaha's Service Manual. Note that you're looking at Column A (not B). I use ft lbs but feel free to use Nm if you have that on your torque wrench. Being specific really isn't necessarily b/c as I mentioned, 11 ft lbs is very little. I torqued it higher.







All done! Time to clean up the mess and go for a test ride. Squeeze the brakes a few times though to get it going. It'll be loose the first few times you pull the lever. Do this while the scooter's at a standstill.

I'm assuming the brake in period is a couple hundred miles so I'll be taking it easy on the brakes for the next couple weeks.

Michelin S1 Tire installation

I probably should have taken a photo of this thing before installation to compare to the photo I saw online, but totally forgot to due to the excitement of things. In a room full of motorcycles and other scoots, my tire was dwarfed big time. These things are tiny! I could probably barely put the donut barely over my head if I had to.

The installation was estimated to take about 1 hr but ended up taking 1 hr and 36 minutes. I don't blame the shop. He still did it fairly quickly and turn to start the installation immediately upon my scheduled arrival when I got to SF Cycle 10 minutes early. Wei was very friendly - equally as friendly in person as over the phone.

As I pulled up, I asked him to check my rear brakes and he confirmed that they're still in good shape. Apparently you can tell from the brake adjustment and don't actually have to look at the pad itself. When asked the condition of my current tire to see if I really needed a replacement as suggested by the last shop I went to, Wei said simply,

"Bald. You came at a good time."

Although there's no tread in the center of this particular rear tire, the depth of the side treads are supposed to be as deep as they are on the side. Once I knew what to look at, it was clearly wearing out.

Wei called me as I was sitting at a cafe nearby down the street, Amsterdam Cafe to tell me that the front brakes will need replacement soon and it's up to me if I want to have him replace it while he's working on it or save it for later.

I opted for later so I could check out some pricing on the pads. It would have been $65 installed. Being that I recently read a forum post on how to perform the work myself, I figured I could save on some labor costs. The work didn't seem to complicated and the tutorial online from Spoolboy looked detailed enough for me to attempt on my own.

Although the service and decor at Amsterdam Cafe is nice, their internet connection is intermittent. It kicks me off every 7 minutes! Researching brake pad pricing was a pain especially since I had to chat or call shops to get their estimated shipping costs. Looks like it would have been $32 for the pads once it arrive to my doorstep.

Ring Ring

My bike is ready and when I showed up, I asked Wei how much it would cost to just buy the brakes from him w/o the labor. $30. Wow! Done. "I'll take 'em."


FIRST TEST RIDE WITH THE NEW MICHELIN S1 TIRE:
I didn't really anticipate that I could tell much of a difference with the new tire. I'm just not that sort of person who can really tell. Surprisingly enough though, I could tell immediately when I took my first turn at speed. I wasn't accelerating nor moving too fast since the break in period is 100 miles as suggested by Wei.

Midway through the turn, I could tell right away that something was different. I could turn so much tighter!!! In fact, it was almost dangerous b/c I turned so sharply the second time heading home that I ended up against traffic! Not good but of course my eyes are up and no cars were there.

This is a good thing! Now that I'm aware of how well the scooter now turns, I can make the turns more safely than I had just done or have done before. The reviews on the tire are right. They do give confidence in the turns. I can lean further down at an angle during the turn w/o feeling like it's unstable. It almost invites the rider to lean into the turns.

I should be completing the break in period in about a week provided the estimated number of miles I go through on a regular basis. I can't wait for that to finish so I can take this thing at full acceleration from a stop. I won't be doing it regularly but I'm just curious at the performance and limits of the tire.

By no means does this mean that I'll be riskier on the road. It just means that I can execute turns more safely with this improved equipment and/or get out of trouble more quickly than I otherwise would be able to with the old stuff.

Son, don't do this at home. By the time you read this more than a decade later, the scooter will be gone and I don't ever want to see you on one. Yes, I'm a hypocrite but that's what dads are. It's for your safety and wellbeing. And you can bet I'll drop in by surprise to make sure you don't have a blue Vino 125 hidden in the garage. And if you do, I'm taking it back.

More to report in a future post as I get more experience on this new tire. So far I'm loving it. If I wasn't unemployed at the moment and was already convinced of how good this tire is prior to testing it out, I would have gotten a matching front tire. My eyes are getting wide at just the thought of a better performing scoot.

All able-bodied young men should ride scooters

...or women I suppose. Every time I ride by a bus stop and see a 20-something year old young guy waiting for the bus, I wonder why he's not riding a scooter. Calculating the costs of my scooter vs using a bus pass, I found that the numbers were pretty much the same.

SCOOTER:
$3.60/tank every 5 days = $21.60/month (obviously varies depending on usage)
$12 insurance (full coverage including theft)
$50 financing (personal loan from a credit union)

That adds up to roughly $84/month

BUS PASS:
$62 for Muni only
$82 for all SF public transportation services (not sure if cable cars are included). This one's a bit more practical since it can get you pretty much anywhere you need to be. Similar and comparable to the convenience of a scooter.

CONCLUSION:
So the difference in cost is $84 (scooter) - $82 (bus pass) = $2. Wow, that's not very significant at all! There is at least one advantage of using the bus of course. There's no need to find/pay for parking. You can do other stuff while on the bus and it's definitely safer.

In terms of convenience though, the bus falls behind the use of the scooter. I'm wondering why more people don't ride scooters in the City. Are people really concerned about their safety? They ought to be, but for some reason I don't see others being concerned as a primary reason for holding back on using a scooter. Perhaps the list is one of a combination of the following:

1. Too girlie. Only chicks ride scooters
2. Don't know how to ride one
3. Don't have a license
4. No reason to have even considered it (don't have friends that ride)
5. Misunderstood cost of the scooter holds people back (personally financing takes care of it. No down payment need and costs are recuperated in less than 2 months and that's only b/c of the cost of the gear - not the scooter itself)
6. Parents

After riding the scooter, I just can't imagine ever taking the bus if I have access to the scooter. There's really no reason. I can leave whenever I want. It's typically faster to get to wherever I need to go (including the time to park and walk to wherever I'm going) and parking costs are usually nothing if non minimal (5x less than parking spaces for cars).

New Tire Hasn't Arrived Yet

On the day that I thought Motorcycle Superstore was going to have my package here turned out to be the day they're shipping it out! What? If it's in stock, why does it take a week to ship out? Though the website looks good and all, I'm not buying from this shop anymore. Perhaps I should have gone with Bike Bandit or another one of their competitors. Maybe if I did that, I'd have my tire installed by now.

I'm in no hurry, but just disappointed that my paid-for shipping takes two weeks for my product to arrive. I typically get free shipping quicker than these snails.

Still waiting...

New tire!

When showed up at SF Moto awhile back, they suggested a new tire. The tire tread looked fine so I had my doubts. After reading up a bit on tread life of the Chen Shin stock OEM tire, I'm thinking it's probably time to swap out for a new one. Being a scooter, it's probably that much more important in terms of safety.

After looking a the Continental Zippy 1, Michelin S1 and Pirelli SL 26 per, I ultimately decided on the Michelin S1 based on forum reviews and the attractive tread pattern. The Zippy's looked a bit too girlie for my taste. Too many curvy swooping lines and dots. I hadn't heard much about the Pirelli, so the Michelin seemed like the best choice.






The price was right too. I also confirmed with Michelin's corporate office this morning that the overall outside dimension is indeed smaller (though not by much, 0.08") than my current tire. This was important to me b/c I didn't want anything larger which would make it even more difficult to flatfoot at a stop. Shipped, the Michelin S1 came out to $41. After installation, I should be set back no more than $75-80 total.



That's cheaper than doing it at SF Moto. They also use the Zippy so much that I don't think they'd have the Michelin S1 in stock anyway. Either way I'd have to order it and since a friend of a friend of a friend owns a shop, I'm heading there for the installation.

The tire should be here in a week and we'll see what the installer says about my existing tire. I'm curious if he thinks it's got more tread life left or if it's good that I got the tire at this time.

Another reason I'm opting to get the tire instead of getting a preliminary evaluation of the tire (2nd opinion) is b/c I did experience some slipping during the winter using my current tire.