DrCohen
Active member
I was driving 45 MPH on my 2020 C650GT when the power sagged and the engine began to labor. I pulled over and found that the parking brake activated with the kickstand up. Fortunately, the rear wheel didn't lock up while I was riding. I am pretty certain that nothing on the road surface hit any part of the bike to activate the parking brake.
I tried retracting and extending the kickstand several times, but the brake remained frozen. After I got a Lyft home and returned with lots of tools, I tried tapping the lever between the parking brake caliper and cable with a mallet. That freed the caliper. To be on the safe side, I backed off the adjuster nut at the rear end of the cable as far as possible, so that the parking brake stayed off even with the kickstand extended. Then I had the bike towed to the dealer (paid for under warranty).
I hope the dealer can figure out what caused the parking brake to freeze, but I'm not optimistic. I did ask them to confirm that the brake pads and caliper are still OK. I'll post a follow-up here when the dealer responds.
Incidentally, this confirms my opinion that controlling the parking brake with the kickstand instead of a simple lever is an overly clever bit of engineering and ultimately a bad idea.
I tried retracting and extending the kickstand several times, but the brake remained frozen. After I got a Lyft home and returned with lots of tools, I tried tapping the lever between the parking brake caliper and cable with a mallet. That freed the caliper. To be on the safe side, I backed off the adjuster nut at the rear end of the cable as far as possible, so that the parking brake stayed off even with the kickstand extended. Then I had the bike towed to the dealer (paid for under warranty).
I hope the dealer can figure out what caused the parking brake to freeze, but I'm not optimistic. I did ask them to confirm that the brake pads and caliper are still OK. I'll post a follow-up here when the dealer responds.
Incidentally, this confirms my opinion that controlling the parking brake with the kickstand instead of a simple lever is an overly clever bit of engineering and ultimately a bad idea.