BellaCorse Brake Kit
BellaCorse Front Brake Kit
The stock Bonnie front brake is a bit "wooden" in feel, and has modest power. I'm also not a big fan of the swirl-look brake rotor; it dosen't match the classic retro-look of the rest of the bike. In searching around for alternatives, I originally purchased the Norman Hyde Brembo kit, which consisted of a new floating front disk, a gold Brembo caliper, and a bracket to attach the caliper to the forks. You can see that kit on this link: https://normanhyde.co.uk/news/?p=192
When the kit arrived, the caliper was black, not gold as depicted on their website, and the rotor had silver buttons, not black as shown. Although neither would affect performance, one of the reasons I chose this kit was for the looks...the gold caliper is consistent with the gold/black theme of the bike.
I installed the kit anyway, or I should say I tried to install the kit. The first problem was the bracket that bolts to the forks. It reuses the original caliper bolts, and secures them to the fork with supplied nylock nuts. However, no washers are supplied to use under the nuts, which seemed bad engineering to me because the fork leg bosses are not hardened in any way. After a few emails with Hyde's technical person, I was told to use washers under the nuts to prevent galling of the fork legs.
Simple, right? No, because if you use washers under the nylock nuts, and washers under the bolt heads, as you also should and as was done stock, the bolts are not long enough to have a secure purchase on the nylock nuts; only a few threads engage. In addition, the braided brake line supplied with the kit had the wrong fitting for the Brembo caliper.
Having become suspect in the Hyde kit's engineering, I returned it for a full refund (credit to them and New Bonneville), and started searching for a replacement.
Enter BellaCorse, http://www.bellacorse.com/. They have a kit that includes an EBC floating rotor and a 6-piston differential bore aluminium caliper from Pretech that, importantly, bolts directly to the fork leg bosses, no bracket required. The caliper is black, but the EBC rotor has a gold center section, thus picking up the gold/black color theme.
Installation was a breeze, bolts right on as you would expect.
Bellacorse even included, gratis, a Union Jack flag, now hanging on my garage wall:
Performance-wise, I'm very happy with the upgrade. The lever is firm (lots of bleeding and the "tie the lever to the bar" trick), and the set up has great feel, with very progressive modulation, much, much better than stock. Looks good too, at least in my opinion. A worthwhile improvement.
The stock Bonnie front brake is a bit "wooden" in feel, and has modest power. I'm also not a big fan of the swirl-look brake rotor; it dosen't match the classic retro-look of the rest of the bike. In searching around for alternatives, I originally purchased the Norman Hyde Brembo kit, which consisted of a new floating front disk, a gold Brembo caliper, and a bracket to attach the caliper to the forks. You can see that kit on this link: https://normanhyde.co.uk/news/?p=192
When the kit arrived, the caliper was black, not gold as depicted on their website, and the rotor had silver buttons, not black as shown. Although neither would affect performance, one of the reasons I chose this kit was for the looks...the gold caliper is consistent with the gold/black theme of the bike.
I installed the kit anyway, or I should say I tried to install the kit. The first problem was the bracket that bolts to the forks. It reuses the original caliper bolts, and secures them to the fork with supplied nylock nuts. However, no washers are supplied to use under the nuts, which seemed bad engineering to me because the fork leg bosses are not hardened in any way. After a few emails with Hyde's technical person, I was told to use washers under the nuts to prevent galling of the fork legs.
Simple, right? No, because if you use washers under the nylock nuts, and washers under the bolt heads, as you also should and as was done stock, the bolts are not long enough to have a secure purchase on the nylock nuts; only a few threads engage. In addition, the braided brake line supplied with the kit had the wrong fitting for the Brembo caliper.
Having become suspect in the Hyde kit's engineering, I returned it for a full refund (credit to them and New Bonneville), and started searching for a replacement.
Enter BellaCorse, http://www.bellacorse.com/. They have a kit that includes an EBC floating rotor and a 6-piston differential bore aluminium caliper from Pretech that, importantly, bolts directly to the fork leg bosses, no bracket required. The caliper is black, but the EBC rotor has a gold center section, thus picking up the gold/black color theme.
Installation was a breeze, bolts right on as you would expect.
Bellacorse even included, gratis, a Union Jack flag, now hanging on my garage wall:
Performance-wise, I'm very happy with the upgrade. The lever is firm (lots of bleeding and the "tie the lever to the bar" trick), and the set up has great feel, with very progressive modulation, much, much better than stock. Looks good too, at least in my opinion. A worthwhile improvement.
