I've had Braketech rotors fitted since the beginning of last year and have ridden with them on track and road throughout the summer and winter. The only thing is that I have done less miles on the bike in this time because of work and family so my time with them is pretty limited - maybe only a few thousand miles road and about 4 track days. But these are my impressions and experience so far.
I searched for a long time for what to replace the original discs with and think they are the best looking rotors and discs on the market and would probably work as well as anything. I don't like wavy discs much and don't think they suit the SD styling. I didn't need to upgrade the brakes as the OE ones are pretty awesome - just looking for things to do and spend my money on! So most of my decisions about things like this are aesthetic. (only being honest )
They are fully floating discs rather than semi and I missed the rattling noise that fully floaters make when you wheel the bike about. The Braketech rotor and bobbin design is clever because it lets the rotor float free but the braking forces are not carried through the bobbin - rather through the interface between the rotor and disc with the bobbin just holding things in place. I had an LC4 with a Beringer brake set up and I went through three sets of rotors and bobbins in as many years as they just wore loose quite quickly. Hopefully this will not happen with these. I changed the bobbin colour over to black - which they sent free of charge with the discs.
Once they are fitted one of the first things you have to do is bed them in and wear off the black finish on the rotors. Braketec recommend that you use a spare set of old pads but I didn't have any so just rode about for a bit gradually checking what was happening to the coating. The brakes do not work well during this exercise and judder a lot. The coating really messes up the pads so I had to take them out and carefully sand away the surfaces back to virgin pad material to remove any residue of the melted coating material. It would be better to use old pads - but who keeps old, worn out pads lying about the garage?
Anyway, it was not an issue for me because at that time a set of Brembo monoblocks was up for sale on the forum so I fitted them with a new set of pads, (which are a completely different design to the OE pads). I just can't remember exactly what they are but pretty sure they are EBC sintered.
When I first started talking to the Braketec importer I wanted to get the carbon discs which they were advertising on the site. They are the first company to experiment with carbon for the road rather than track but I think it's too early days and they were hideously expensive and actually not actually available at the time. But I've always liked cast iron and their performance is always awesome. Be warned though - they do rust up very quickly so if this bothers you get the stainless steel versions. Personally I don't mind and like it but riding through winter the whole front wheel and forks get turned a sort of orange colour with the daily rust coating being turned into dust and flung off onto the surrounding surfaces.
So what are they like to ride with?
Well, you have to take it easy for the first mile or so because with the rust they don't work and feel very, very rough through the lever. But you just carefully clean them up as you warm the engine and tyres up anyway. I can't pretend to be an expert on braking or assessing performance mods. Once I'd been using these for a few days I couldn't remember what the originals felt like for comparison. All I know is that they work really, really well! I think they feel a bit rougher than standard but this is probably more to do with pad material than brakes. They have great feel and progression and I mostly brake with only one or two fingers in any situation - they just don't need more effort than that.
On track thay just do the job for me. Flat out and then needing to brake hard they just offer me anything that I ever want and the limit of braking is always the tyres or the limit my arms/body can take - I don't think I can remember ever a time when these brakes were the bit that was wanting. Maybe I've never even managed to use their full capacity to brake - it wouldn't surprise me!
But there is a down side to the set up I have that I haven't solved yet.
They are absolutely shit for riding on motorways and fast A roads in the pouring rain. It's not that they don't work in the wet, they're fine for normal riding and legal speeds and they're fine riding on track in the wet and rain because they are constantly being used and kept hot. But on long journeys where you are cruising in the rain and the brakes get really wet there is a delay when you apply the brake to them actually working.
And I'm taking about a BIG FOOKING DELAY! Heart wrenching, bum tightening lag when NOTHING HAPPENS. This has nearly given me a fooking heart attack so many times that it's really made me rethink about touring in the wet. I've got to try some new pads and sort it out. The only way I managed this winter was to constantly apply the brake at regular intervals to clear the water, put some heat into the pads and rotors and sort of 'prime' them. Two or three minutes without this and they were back to being useless. It made long journeys pretty exhausting and stressful and of course this was always in the wet and cold so it was pretty miserable anyway. At times I hated them so much that I vowed to change back to the OE set up.
But on the whole the change to these brakes is great. They look better, they probably work better and they make me feel better most of the time.
And they shake, rattle and rust which I personally love! Ha ha.