Braided Brake Lines - Worth it?

[leigh7659]

having just rebuilt my calipers and replaced the (13yrs old....) hoses with new hel lines - they've definitely improved stopping power but at the expense of feel. Also inital bite is nowhere near as good as the old hoses.

tbh I reckon I could have got most of the performance improvement back by just rebuilding the calipers and re-bleeding. Which is what I would do with a two year old bike with a few miles on it. If it aint broke etc  Next time I'll be looking into the price of OEM lines.

[Doug_Z1000]

I'd have thought initial bite was the pads, not the lines.  The lack of feel is probably the loss of 13 year old lines flexing, you'd probably get the similar loss with new oem lines.

[leigh7659]

Yeah you could be right there about the old hose flexing more. I guess that might improve the feeling of initial bite as a decrease in pressure as you come of the brakes would make the hoses return to their normal state and draw the pistons back further into the caliper body than they would with new lines.

With these new hel lines it feels like the pads are already against the disc iykwim

[Scratches chin]

[the invisible dog]

When I got my '10' the brakes were OK but seemed to be too much lever before they bit
Changed to HEL lines but saw no real difference, it had done less than 4k
Rebuilt the calipers with new seals, lubricating with fluid, as per the book, and changed the plunger in the master cylinder but still the same...! 
Was resigned to this just being the way they are on '04s, having read plenty on the web about Brembo master upgrades and swapping calipers from zzr1400s and stuff 
24k now and the lever was starting to get a bit too much so ripped them apart again, cleaned and reassembled with red rubber grease on all parts
Could feel the very slightest movement on one pad when pulling the lever but barely
Now I am riding with the lever on its closest notch and working like a microswitch 
Quite scarey first time out, nearly dropped it out of the garage! 
Those behind got a wake up call too
Surprising how the riding style had adapted to 'just not braking much'