i have a motorcycle i jut bought. i noticed that i do have a front disc brake and no rear disc brake. though i should say that having a rear disc brake for me is more of an eye-candy. should i have a rear disc brake added to my motorcycle? what are the advantages and disadvantages of it?
I assume it has a drum brake then if it has no disc brake on the rear. Most bikes do just fine with a drum rear brake. You do 90% of your braking with the front brakes anyway. The rear is just for control, for low speed and for stopping on loose or slick surfaces and for holding the bike on a hill or at a stop. Adding a disc brake to the rear of your bike would entail a lot of new parts, machine shop services and a huge number of headaches to get everything to work right again. It would be much cheaper to buy a different bike that already has a rear disc brake.
It's BRAKE, not 'break' first of all. Secondly, if it does not have a disc brake on the rear, it likely has a rear drum brake. A drum brake for the rear is fine for most applications. Swapping in a disc brake setup would be both time consuming and costly but adding no real value to the bike or aiding it's stopping ability. As mentioned above, the front brakes have a strong majority of your stopping power as the weight is transferred forward when you brake. Also, pushing on a braking wheel stops you a lot more efficiently than pulling on a braking wheel. Try this with a bicycle if you want. Just pushing the bike (not riding it), first brake the rear wheel only to the point of locking it. What do you notice? Now try the same thing with just the front wheel brake. Did you notice the different how much more difficult it is to push the bike with the front wheel brake locking the wheel?
Would probably cost more than you paid for the bike to have this done properly. I've owned 14 bikes, at least half had rear drum brakes, some had front and rear drum brakes. They all performed very nicely. I'm sure a front drum would suck on my VFR but it worked just fine on my old Triumph and my first BMW. Your bike is engineered to do what it is supposed to do. Put as much worry into proper maintenance and you will do just fine.
Would probably cost more than you paid for the bike to have this done properly. I've owned 14 bikes, at least half had rear drum brakes, some had front and rear drum brakes. They all performed very nicely. I'm sure a front drum would suck on my VFR but it worked just fine on my old Triumph and my first BMW. Your bike is engineered to do what it is supposed to do. Put as much worry into proper maintenance and you will do just fine.
I assume it has a drum brake then if it has no disc brake on the rear. Most bikes do just fine with a drum rear brake. You do 90% of your braking with the front brakes anyway. The rear is just for control, for low speed and for stopping on loose or slick surfaces and for holding the bike on a hill or at a stop. Adding a disc brake to the rear of your bike would entail a lot of new parts, machine shop services and a huge number of headaches to get everything to work right again. It would be much cheaper to buy a different bike that already has a rear disc brake.
It's BRAKE, not 'break' first of all. Secondly, if it does not have a disc brake on the rear, it likely has a rear drum brake. A drum brake for the rear is fine for most applications. Swapping in a disc brake setup would be both time consuming and costly but adding no real value to the bike or aiding it's stopping ability. As mentioned above, the front brakes have a strong majority of your stopping power as the weight is transferred forward when you brake. Also, pushing on a braking wheel stops you a lot more efficiently than pulling on a braking wheel. Try this with a bicycle if you want. Just pushing the bike (not riding it), first brake the rear wheel only to the point of locking it. What do you notice? Now try the same thing with just the front wheel brake. Did you notice the different how much more difficult it is to push the bike with the front wheel brake locking the wheel?
