RE Himalayan 411 is not known for its braking capacity. They are soft, lack good bite and often not enough to stop a 200kg motorcycle in a short distance. But so does the Himalayan which doesn’t go very fast and hence stock brakes are usually good enough.
After I installed the performance mods on the Himalayan, the throttle response and acceleration has improved. It’s quicker (not faster) and hence I felt that the stock brakes aren’t adequate enough especially in the city traffic to counteract the quicker throttle response.
I came across two aftermarket solutions to improving the braking performance. These are the EBC sintered pads and Vesrah ceramic brake pads. The sintered ones offer better bite but they eat into your disc rotor.
So i went ahead with the ceramic pads from Vesrah looking for better braking performance. After riding for more than 7000 kms with it, here’s my honest opinion.
Pros of Vesrah Ceramic Brake Pads for Himalayan 411
1. Improved bite
There’s a noticeable but not so significant improvement in the initial bite especially on the front brakes of the Himalayan 411.
2. Better Life
It offers slightly better life than the stock ones on the Himalayan 411.
Cons of Vesrah Ceramic Brake Pads for Himalayan 411
1. Poor fitment
The pads doesn’t fit quite perfectly on the Himalayan and hence there’s annoying break noise for the first 250 – 300 kms . It becomes worse the more you ride it as the heat expands the break and more of it comes in contact with the rear disk continuously. Once it wears off a bit, the noise reduces. Because of this constant friction, it can affect the performance and mileage too.
2. High Cost
Vesrah Ceramic Brake Pads are expensive. For comparison, the stock break pads cost around 100 – 150 INR and Vesrah costs 1300 INR.
Should you buy the Vesrah Ceramic Brake Pads for your Himalayan 411?
The Vesrah ceramic break pads isn’t worth the money you pay for. For the 10x the money you pay for the pads, you are getting around 1.5x the performance. Not even twice the performance. And that too just for the front brake. The rear one is almost same as the stock.
So don’t fall for the review videos on youtube. Save yourself some money and keep the stock pads. Go for all these aftermarket pads only if you are changing the entire braking system of the bike which will be very expensive.
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