Before I rode anywhere I squeezed the brakes until the pads touched the rotors and went from there. They seemed fine to me after a couple laps around my complex.

 

actually this and the write-up flyou found is the exact opposite of what you want to do to bed your brakes (if you choose to do so) you DO NOT want to make "hard stops" right from the get go.. you want to make easy, gradual stops to start. do not start from 65-70 either, start from 35-40 using only "moderate" pressure, and gradually build up your speed and braking pressure from there. If you make incredibly hard stops right from the get go with brand new pads (at least in a car) they will glaze.

This is a good process to follow in your car..it ensures the longest life of the pad, and the least chance the brakes will eventually start squeaking. In a motorcycle however I doubt it is very important, and i doubt you would have been able to glaze the pads making hard stops from 70mph right after you put them on, being that the bike only weighs 400 lbs and the brakes run so much cooler than in a car. I just didn't want this misinformation floating around and cause anyone any problems for their next brake job on their car

 

Care to provide any basis for this statement? Can you back it up?

 

Here's a good link for new brake "bedding in"

http://www.raceshopper.com/tech.shtml

 

^^ looks like he did for me... the website where flyou found his write up is talking about slamming on brand new brake pads until you can smell the brakes and/or see smoke...that would sound to me like they are being heated well past where they should be (especially brand new). I'm sure there are plenty of pads more designed for racing (carbon metallics and such), however, that would fare perfectly fine following those instructions. However I would never recommend bedding the vast majority of pads by slamming on your brand new brake pads from high rates of speed until you feel them fading, see them smoking, and smell them, as the write up says to do.

 

Looks to me as the objective of both procedures of "bedding" the brakes is to allow the pads to apply a layer of material to the rotor.

 

that's part of it, however i also think (corret me if i'm wrong, thought i was told this once) that bedding of the pads also fills microscopic grooves inside the pad and helps makes more uniform contact with the rotor.

 

I believe that to be correct. Maybe jutsin can fill us in on the corrrect definition of "bedding" of the brakes?

 

Will my brakes keep making a light grinding noise until they are broken in? My old pads made noise but now I can really hear it when I am just coasting.

 

I believe that all disc brake type brakes have drag to them causing this slight grinding noise. You probably dont notice this on your cage due to the fact that there are obstructions between you and the brakes. I have installed multiple disk brake conversions on my air-cooled vw's and every single kit has had this drag.