Many people will be aware the braking on a stock bonneville isn’t great, it’s even worse if you found some extra horses. It’s pretty widely accepted and allot of folk I know have upgraded their stock pads to something like the EBC HH sintered pads – myself included.

But what if you want more? You could swap out your front end but that involves some serious money, and if you don’t want your bike to be a street fighter do you want upside down forks? Probably not.

So what else can you do? First of, swap out the standard lines for braided lines, the stock bonnie has a 85cm front line and 83cm rear line – front is 45 degree angled whilst the rear is straight banjo bolt fit. I tried to order some lines from china but had very little success with only one line turning up and being the wrong length. I ended up using BTR lines sold by Bike Torque Racing – £20 per line.

The next thing I did was look up upgrade the front calliper – it’s not well known but other bikes use the same front calliper – if your on Ebay you might see the odd 3 pot Nissin Calliper being sold for £150… but if you look for a CM650 or Honda Hornet Left Calliper it will fit – I bought one with pads in new condition for only £40 shipped!

Here are a few videos of the swap and video 2 looks more at the 2 callipers.

All in I spent £100 – £40 on the new calliper, £20 on new HH sintered pads for the front and £40 on new lines – Although I’ve only done a few shorter rides I can say the change is noticeable – with the front brake being allot more responsive.