Emergency braking on a bike

[dantama]

Braking came up on the Laying It Down thread, so I started it's own thread.

I'm not an expert at anything to do with motorcycles, I have just ridden them since I was 14 and by nature I like to figure out how to best operate mechanical machines (I used to be a heavy equipment operator).

The things that I have found about stopping a motorcycle are pretty basic and I know that we have a Motor Officer member here, so I hope he chimes in on any of my advice.

When braking hard on a motorcycle, the forks compress from weight shifting from the rear, to the front. The extra weight on the front gives more traction to the front tire, and less traction to the rear.

The result is that what ever pressure is on the rear brake, is just before lock up, now easily locks up the rear. Think sport bikes doing a stoppie, the rear tire is all the way off the ground, no braking ability on the the rear.

Now think about halfway in between our Nomads and a sport bike doing a stoppie. Somewhere half way in between we would have lost a lot of traction off the rear tire, therefore it takes a lot less to lock it up.

Of course you don't want to lock the front tire up either, but it can handle a tremendous amount of pressure when the weight has shifted forward. If you practice over and over, you can go a little harder each time on the front brake. Eventually, you will get to the point where you can hear the front tire start to make a "roaring" sound, it's not a high pitched squeal, kind of a dull roar. That is where you are at maximum safe stopping. Not too far beyond that is lock up of the front wheel.

From what I've figured out, a firm initial pull on the front brake lever to begin with, followed by increasing pressure all the way till the roaring sound. At the same time, you need to have a decreasing pressure on the rear brake.

If you do lock the rear brake up, it's best to leave it lock all the way to the stop. If you are a little too far out of line (front tire lining straight up with rear tire) and let off the rear, you easily can high side when you let off the rear brake and it grabs traction while out of line. You can violently highside, as in pick the bike up and toss it in mid air down the road. If the rear locks, it's best to just keep it that way, it's the regaining traction that is the problem.

Just my thoughts on stopping.