From a parent’s garage near Eindhoven to the machines of the best motocross riders in the world. In 1996 Gaston Veron produced the first Moto Master brake disc and since then the company has been full steam ahead.
The list of riders that Moto Master has provided stopping power for is nothing short of amazing. AMA champions like Ryan Dungey and Cooper Webb, and World Champions such as Jeffrey Herlings and Antonio Cairoli all rely on Moto Master to get them stopped.
The kind people at Moto Master sent us over a few items for us to test and review. This consisted of:
Flame Factory rear 4.4mm disc
Flame 270 MX brake disc
GPX-N Narrow X-ring chain 520
Sinter PRO series racing GP rear and front pads
Let’s start with the discs as this is Moto Master’s bread and butter so to speak. Both discs were simple to install as you would imagine. There is nothing too mentally taxing about fitting a disc. Before we address the durability and stopping power of the discs let’s take a look at the aesthetics. The Flame series in my opinion is the best-looking disc on the market. The machined aircraft aluminium and the black anodised inner ring just makes them pop off the wheel (Figuratively of course).
The front disc offers a performance gain of 35% over a stock disc, a big difference when you are charging down to the first corner. Not only does it have better-stopping power, but it is 20% lighter than a standard OEM disc.
The weight is not something I tend to notice on products like this but the overall stopping power was definitely noticeable. Not only was I able to charge into the corners harder I also had an overall better feel for the brake. It felt like I could really work the front break hard and it wasn’t going to lock up and cause me to wash the front.The 4.4mm rear disc was a similar story. I had a better feel for the brake but as someone who has a tendency to drag the rear brake from time to time, the extra 0.4mm made all the difference in it overheating or not. The extra 0.4mm means the disc can withstand highertemperatures before it starts to fade out. So if you’re like me and in the rear brakedraggers club this is something I would highly recommend.
The GPX-N narrow X-ring chain was a bit of a pain to fit, this is most likely due to the fact that I had never fitted a pivot link chain before. So take that with a pinch of salt. Besides that, I cannot pick a fault in this chain. I have had it on my Yamaha YZ450F for 25 hours now and it works the same as the day I put it on. I have not had to pull the wheel back to allow for some stretch nor has it lost any of its integrity in a sidewards motion.
The durability of this chain has really been second to none. I have been testing this in the UK so you know it’s done its fair share of muddy rides. Yet no colour deformation or corrosion. This is down to the special cold-forming technology they use to make this chain.
If you ever thought that all chains weighed virtually the same, I beg you to try this chain. I had to do a double-take when I picked it up next to a standard chain. For something that mostly gets overlooked the weight saving was staggering.
The Sinter PRO series racing GP pads are their top-of-the-line brake pads. The same pads that riders like Kay De Wolf and Jeffrey Herlings are using. And if they’re good enough to stop those riders they’re more than capable of stopping me.
It doesn’t end there, however. Not only do they stop you tremendously quickly there is no break in period. If you buy a cheaper after-market pad it is wise to drag your brakes for a lap or two in practice to get off any coatings left on the pad from the manufacturing process. This however is not the case on the GP pads. I put a fresh set in mid-week beforea national and it wasn’t until after qualifying I realised that I hadn’t bedded them in. I then realised I hadn’t even noticed which told me that my brakes were working at 100% right from the off. Up until that point, the highest I had qualified was P2, with the GP pads I went P1. So make of that what you will.
Of course, with such a high-quality compound you have to sacrifice something somewhere. This comes in the form of durability in this case. These pads are not going to last you 6 months like a cheaper option might, but they are going to help you stop better. It really comes down to what you value more, performance or durability.
It is difficult to write informative reviews on products like these as there is only so much you can say about a brake disc but hopefully, you have taken something away from this.
And if you only take away one thing from this review let it be that Moto Master knows there way around slowing people down. Like their slogan says “Stopping the world’s fastest”.
Tested and written by Brad Wheeler