Winter is a good time to take care of all those maintenance chores that you put off during riding season. I'm currently working on a number of upgrades and modifications to my V-Strom while there's still a couple of feet of snow outside, so an e-mail I received today was very timely ;) I don't quite think it's time to replace brake pads and/or rotors yet, but my bike is three years old, so it's probably time to think about replacing the brake fluid. Fortunately, the guys at Bike Bandit wrote up a pretty thorough tutorial on brake maintenance. I am posting the link here for anyone reading my blog (and also for me to refer to when I need to work on MY brakes!).
For those of you wondering, I have no affiliation with Bike Bandit other than being a happy customer. I've bought a few items from them, and they've treated me fairly (although I wish they would ship tires to Alaska!). They don't pay me to link to their site, nor do I receive any referrals back from them.
Edit: by mid-summer, I heard an unusual and not-at-all wonderful sound while applying the rear brakes. Looking at the pads when I got home...well...truthfully, there *WERE* no more pads. I had worn all of the friction material off the outside of the caliper and almost all of the friction material off the inside pad in ~14,500 miles of riding. Fortunately, Blaire at http://svracingparts.com hooked me up with some Galfer organic rear pads and HH sintered metal pads for the front calipers. They were a snap to install, and Blaire was extremely helpful, making sure I got parts that would meet my needs. I highly recommend SV Racing to other Wee/Vee owners needing parts!
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