[ophic]

I've had the (mis)fortune to ride a few Jap cruisers in my time:

Suzuki GZ125 Marauder
Honda VT750 Shadow
Suzuki LS650 Boulevard S40 (or Savage as they're better known)

Now the 125 had a single disc up front but had quite reasonable stopping power.
The other 2 also have single discs but imho have such little front braking power that they're borderline dangerous.

The Honda Shadow I overhauled the brakes myself - there was no air in the lines, and I changed the pads for sintered HH. Slight improvement. Not much.

I get that I'm used to sportsbike type SV brakes, which aren't ranked as the best in the world and mine could use an overhaul anyway, but they're still 10 times better than the 2 bigger cruisers.

Could it be that the forks being raked out more gives a much more spongy feel as you're basically just squashing the forks at first? Or is it the weight distribution and you just have to use the rear brake more (which is excellent on all 3 bikes, despite being drum brakes). The GZ125 had fairly normal geometry iirc, unlike the other two, which might explain why it's front brake was better.

Just to get them out of the way already:
Cruisers hah!
Leather chaps etc
Hardly Drivable

They're my Mrs' bikes OK? Honest guv.

So are they just universally terrible or is it because of the suspension or does no-one care because they're cruisers or something else? Is there something I can do to improve it?