Shaving my legs.

I think radially mounted brakes look much tidier than conventional ones. There is however one big drawback when using forks with mounting points for radial brake calipers: they are an integral part of the fork bottoms and can't be unbolted. And since my forks came off of a Gixxer 750, both legs had the mounting points (I will only be using one calliper). And it looked crap with that empty "horn" sticking out into thin air on the right side of the bike...

Now, if I was a much more accomplished mechanic, maybe I could have disassembled the forks and put the fork bottoms in a lathe, but to tell you the truth, I couldn't work out how to loosen the damn things. I guess they are pressed into place? Or maybe there is a bolt holding them on inside the fork sliders?

The only way forward I could think of was to put the right fork leg in the mill and machine off most of the mounting points structure (see picture 1). This step could have been accomplished with a hacksaw as well, but if you have a CNC mill at your disposal… The result can be seen in picture 2. Better, but not good. Next step was to somehow round off the part where the mounting points used to be and make it look as if it was never there. This took me a few hours, using a combo of pneumatic angle grinder/sander, and a flat steel file. Take it real easy here so you don’t remove too much material!

The final step was to restore the matt painted finish (picture 4). I went for a special brake calliper paint that is supposed to withstand brake fluid, which can wreak havoc on standard paint. It came in a spray can, and despite the salesman’s repeated guarantee to the contrary, turned out as glossy as a grand piano. I let the paint harden and then took the shine off with a scotch brite cloth. Result.