Braking techniques

[dantama]

In an emergency you want to get the most that you can out of your bikes ability to stop. Here's what I know about stopping a motorcycle. If anyone else has anything more to add, please do.

Don't begin by "grabbing" the brake. Begin like you would do with any stop, but get progressively stronger pressure on the front brake after the initial pull.

The forks will start compressing from weight transfer from the rear of the bike. Weight will move from the rear onto the front, when this happens the front tire will have an increase in traction ability, and at the same time the rear will have a decrease in traction ability.

Because of that, as you give a firmer pull on the front brake, you need to lessen the pressure on the rear brake. I find modulating the rear brake more difficult on a Nomad because you are picking up so much of your foot to reach the brake, that its hard to modulate less pressure. Might not be hard for everyone, but I've found it easier on bikes with pegs that supported the main part of my foot and I was just pivoting to press the brake.

If you do lock the rear brake up when the rear becomes less weighted, it's best to keep it locked all the way to the stop. You can release it if you are lined up completely straight between the front tire and rear. If the rear is out of line too much, you run the risk of causing a violent high side when you let off the rear brake and it regains traction while out of line.

I high sided my Nomad on a dirt road in the manner described above. It was violent enough at about 30mph to toss the bike through the air (not touching the ground at all) landing down the road about 15-20 yards, facing the opposite direction, and up on a ledge on the side of the road a couple of feet above the road. I landed just beyond it, also not touching the road in between.

High sides can be very violent, so it's best to just keep the rear wheel locked till you stop if it does lock.

It's hard to know where full front braking lies, and you want to get all you can out of it without locking it.

When it gets right near full capacity, it will make a slight roaring sound. Not a squeal, more of a dull roar. Ideal is to get up to that noise, but not go beyond it. Locking up is just beyond it.

The amount of pressure you use on the front brake lever towards the end of the stop will be far greater than the pressure in the first little bit of the stop. As the extra weight comes forward you can steadily increase your pull on the lever. You can keep increasing it till you hear that muffled roar, and more pressure still to maintain the roar.

If you squeezed the lever at the beginning with the same effort that you can at the end, you would lock the tire up. You have to progressively get there.

As said before, as you get more and more lever effort on the front, you need less and less on the rear in order for it to not lock up. At the beginning of the stop the rear is contributing a fair amount of braking, towards the end of an emergency stop it doesn't contribute much at all. Visualize a sport bike doing a stoppie, the rear is contributing zero there.

Practice this over and over, from now till you no longer ride.

I can get it nearly perfect in practice, but in a true emergency with extra adrenaline kicking in, it's easy to get wrong.

There is a theory of muscle memory that basically says you can practice something so much that your muscles remember how to do it without you having to think much about it. You want to get there, though I haven't.

In the last emergency stop I did, I locked the rear brake up. It surprised me that I did it with all the practice that I've done, but with adrenaline pumping it very easy to push too hard on the rear brake. It's the front brake you want to be sure not to lock up.