Id say the advice is to try to avoid emergency braking events always, if you can. That shit is never fun!
There should not be THAT much crap on your pads when you get them, they should be pretty good to go, but in general yes, test them a few times, if not to break them in, but to be sure everything is put back together correctly and working correctly. Any loss of braking would only be a few percent, it would not be like the difference between front and rear braking in efficiency.
Speaking of that, had a harley clown tell me the other day that using front brakes is only for idiots, that you are just guaranteed to wreck if you use your front brakes. This guy had most his teeth missing, and a scar on his face from a past wreck, so I decided not to try to educate him, it didn't seem worth the effort
That is one thing that kind of surprises me, you try to explain ABS and newer tech to people and they act like you are making stuff up. (even though anti lock brakes are not exactly new tech) Yah maybe back in the 80s you could lock your front tire up and flip your bike (again if you are an idiot) but modern bikes, you'd really have to TRY to do that or a malfunction or something drastic like disabling it.
As for your Energica, do some regular stops, if they are working well, do a few heavier handed stops, Id say start slow in case there Is a problem, it's not manifesting at 60 mph, then brake from regular speeds you drive down to a full stop. That's the way brakes work, so break them in the way they work. One of the things you will be checking to see if they are working correctly is that they release smoothly without sticking from a full stop. Can't check that if you don't stop now can you?
The thinking on the don't come to a full stop is, if you are doing an emergency stop on brand new pads (just don't unless you ARE in an emergency) and there is some shit on them, the heat you build up during that hard stop, which will be a lot, and then you stop and squash that pad, with the superheated shit on it, down on your disc. The stuff burns to, melts to and fuses / glues your brake pad to the rotor, or leaves a crappy spot on it from the burnt stuff glazing itself onto it and now you DO have a problem to fix. Very hard stops are also bad on your brake fluid too. Ive seen race bikes boil off their brakes a few times, it pops and smoke comes out.
Braking will smooth the pad out a bit as everything wears in and then you will have your best braking available. If your rotor is grooved or has other linear mechanical defects to it's surface then it may take a few WEEKS to fully wear your pad enough so that it does now fit down into that groove, but that is in extreme instances, if your rotor is warped, grooved, you should have had it machined / replaced to begin with when putting the new pads on.
When testing / breaking in your brakes. Of course look for proper operation. Do they apply smoothly? Is there any jerking, pulling, pulsing? Is there any grinding, squalling, squealing from them, do they release properly and all the way? Is all the air out of the system, in case you had to mess with the fluid too or opened up that circuit. Looking at the rotor you can also see if there are any uneven spots or any spots where it looks like it rubbed too hard or something touched, was grinding etc. It should in all honestly go pretty easy for you. There are a few things to look at, of course, but it's not very difficult to learn how or to do.
Good luck and let us know how it goes for you!
aaron
