It was scary weird when it happened.

[MidnightSE]

Riding a few days ago, minding my own business, when I had to make a panic stop as a cager c@nt in front of me slammed on the brakes for no apparent reason. All ended well. Then after a mile or so, I had to slow down and I gave front brakes a gentle squeeze. Thoughts that rush through your head are, "I'm gonna F@#%&% die!" when you feel your fingers just sink all the way to the handlebar. The front brakes had completely vanished for a split second. I had to press the foot lever to slow down. After this pucker factor, I had to pull over and take a breather.
Subsequent use of front brakes hasn't given me any issues. The brake system functioned satisfactorily for the rest of my extended ride. And even the next day and the day after, brakes exhibited no ill behavior.

Does anyone have an explanation for this conundrum? 

[Coconut]

Glad you were OK after this !

It could be the Brake Fluid contaminated with water.

Brake fluid is "hygroscopic" meaning it absorbs water.

If the "watered down" brake fluid is present at the Caliper,
when braking heavily lots of heat is generated, and this
could cause the brake fluid to boil, as water boils at
a lower temperature than Brake Fluid.

That is why it is recommended to change the Brake Fluid every 2 years regardless of mileage,
and as you have a 5 year old Trophy I would check and see when the Brake Fluid was last changed,
( if ever ! ) and get it changed if it was more than 2 years ago.

If the Brake Fluid HAS been changed recently I would be looking at properly bleeding the system,
using equipment connected to the OBD Port so that the ABS valves can be opened and closed,
such as an appropriate OBD 2 device with "DealerTool" or "TigerTool" software,
to exclude any traces of air in the system, which can result in excessive
brake lever / pedal travel due to air being way more compressible than Brake Fluid.

If this were to happen with fresh Brake Fluid and NO Air in the system,
it could be due to a fauty Master Cylinder or Caliper Seal,
or possibly even a Caliper Piston that had previously been sticking,
and the heavy braking freed it off so that at the next brake application,
all of the pressure from the Master Cylinder was used up moving that one piston
back to its corrrect position against the Pad / Disc. 


Cheers 

[digital]

The important thing is that nothing has happened to you.

Ami from Norway, something very similar happened to me. It was caused by excess heat on one of the discs. There were moments in which the front brakes did not act and the brake lever almost touched the throttle grip.

Driving on Norwegian roads is dangerous when you are in an emergency situation, as there is barely a 30 cm shoulder to stop.

So when I was able to stop in a factory parking lot. Let the brake discs cool and check the brakes.

The cause was, that the piston and pad of the combined brake corresponding to the right disc and that it comes from the rear brake had been hooked.

I moved the rear brake pedal several times and my wife stayed at the factory gate while I went out to test the bike. Everything returned to normal, when we returned from the trip and got home, I checked all the braking support, I cleaned everything well and I have not had any more problems.

I recommend passing air under pressure from time to time through the brake calipers, to extract that black dust that is not good that is on the outside of the brake calipers.

[dietDrThunder]

A possibility to consider: if you haven't acquainted yourself well with how your brakes feel when ABS kicks in, when there's a panic stop situation, the actuation of ABS feels very much like a loss of brakes. I would suggest heading to a clean, dry paved lot for some panic stop practice.

Please don't think that I mean this in a 'you don't know what you're talking about' kind of way. We call it a 'panic' stop because all other priorities immediately become background noise, because all that matters is stopping. This means that our ability to process information, and especially new information (like what the brakes feel like when ABS kicks in) can be pretty close to 0.

Just a thought is all. I'm so glad you are ok!

[digital]

Originally Posted by dietDrThunder

A possibility to consider: if you haven't acquainted yourself well with how your brakes feel when ABS kicks in, when there's a panic stop situation, the actuation of ABS feels very much like a loss of brakes. I would suggest heading to a clean, dry paved lot for some panic stop practice.

Please don't think that I mean this in a 'you don't know what you're talking about' kind of way. We call it a 'panic' stop because all other priorities immediately become background noise, because all that matters is stopping. This means that our ability to process information, and especially new information (like what the brakes feel like when ABS kicks in) can be pretty close to 0.

Just a thought is all. I'm so glad you are ok!

Indeed, that's the way it is and it's good to do that kind of practice.

[MidnightSE]

A possibility to consider: if you haven't acquainted yourself well with how your brakes feel when ABS kicks in, when there's a panic stop situation, the actuation of ABS feels very much like a loss of brakes. I would suggest heading to a clean, dry paved lot for some panic stop practice.

Please don't think that I mean this in a 'you don't know what you're talking about' kind of way. We call it a 'panic' stop because all other priorities immediately become background noise because all that matters is stopping. This means that our ability to process information and especially new information (like what the brakes feel like when ABS kicks in) can be pretty close to 0.

Just a thought is all. I'm so glad you are ok!

Sorry to tell you but you have completely misconstrued my post.
The loss of front brakes happened about 2 (maybe less) miles after I had to do a panic stop. It happened when I wanted to slow down and the hand lever sunk to the handlebar grip. Only after foot brake application, it returned to normal. During my panic stop, ABS didn't engage at all as there was ample grip available to both tires...

Cheers...

[Trophyed-Up]

That is scary.  You survive the "oh crap!" emergency only to get another "oh crap!" at a routine stop just down the road.  Lucky the rear brake pedal came through for you.  I would go through the front brake system.  Try bleeding some brake fluid out and see if water or dirty fluid come out of the caliper.  Maybe it's time to change out the brake fluid.  Maybe air got into the system somehow.   I haven't studied the Trophy manual for brake maintenance so I'm just speaking from general experience.  The only way to really test it would be to get on the brakes hard again and see if the problem repeats.  Obviously, not in traffic unless you're a real thrill seeker.  I think the manual says you're supposed to change the brake fluid every 2 years.  I have to wonder how many actually follow that rule.  You see the same thing for cars and I don't know anyone who does that.  I plan on changing the brake and clutch fluid this winter.