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.

[dogdoc]

Good to know info Dan,,,

[flightdoc]

As a rider coach......you are correct. Once the weight has shifted to the front tire there is a tremendous amount of traction. The rear does lighten up. If you've ever practiced emrgency stops on your Nomad then you already know that it takes alot to get that front tire to lock up. It actual takes quit a bit to lock the rear if done properly.
as stated previously, practice practice practice.
If the front locks up, release the pressure to the front immediately. If the rear locks up, hold it. If you do practice then you could slowly release the rear but in a real time situation you probably won't have time or even think about releasing it. If it's ineveitable that you are going to hit something keep applying brake pressure all the way to get as slow as possible.....if you are unable to swerve to avoid. Swerving...another important emergency manuver.

[Idaho]

Dan is correct about a locked up rear brake. A couple of years ago on a Volusia I had a driver pull out in front of me from a side road as I was driving the speed limit on a highway. Thought I was going to T-bone him. Mashed both brakes hard and tried to keep it straight. He must have finally seen me (it was dark and my headlight was right into his driver side window) and hit the gas to get out of the way. Somehow I cleared his rear bumper and had open road in front of me. But, the bike was starting to drift a little sideways and I was afraid that it was going to go down, so...........you guess it, I released the brakes. Thats when things got real interesting. Damn thing started whipping side to side. Only the shear terror of going down helped me keep that beast upright. When I finally got it stopped I was grateful and scared and shaking like a leaf. Have thought about it a lot since then. Had a State Police trooper take a photo of the skid mark for my benefit (I as coming from his house when this happened) just because I could not believe how close it was. I probably would just release the front brake and hope that the rear tire dragging would straighten out the bike. One thing I do know is that I'm a lot more defensive when I drive and don't assume that the other driver sees me and will not pull out in front of me. Idaho.

One thing I've noticed with my nomad: I have a bad habit of underbraking the front. I'm trying to break this habit. I had the front brake down good on my honda - but the same amount of pressure on the nomad hardly does anything (The front brake was a lot more sensitive on the honda). We all know that most of our braking comes from the front brake. I found out I was making this mistake when one day just for fun I applied both brakes moderatly. I released the rear completly (still held the front steady) and felt like I wasn't slowing down and found that the pressure on the front was hardly doing anything. I immediatly released the front and then quickly returned to the same pressure I origionally had on it and again it didn't really do anything to the bike as far as slowing it down. I realized then that I could be apllying A LOT more pressure to the front. All along most of my braking was coming from my rear brake rather than the front due to the lack of pressure I was applying to the front. Its wierd, but it is a HARD habit to break. I'm tying to make a conscience effort to brake properly because I want to master maximum braking power in shortest distance possible W/O lock up. I know I had the shadow down pretty well. I believe this bad habit with the nomad stems from muscle memory I had with the shadow.

[vaccam]

When I purchased my 2001 Nomad the PO made a couple of telling comments. One, he had to replace the rear tire to pass inspection, the front was fine, and two, he never used the front brake.... ???

[rcashell]

I know of many riders who only use the front brake. I have managed to lock up the rear brake on a sudden stop. I held it until I was stopped and did not have any problems other than seat cushion insertion

[dantama]

Once I had the braking down in parking lot practice I devised a way to practice at speed out on the road with out a lot of preplanning of when start.

On a lightly traveled road, with a dotted line down the center, and at a time of day were some of the trees shadows would get out to the middle of the road, but not very many, I decided that the next shadow I saw that fell on a line, I'd immediately do an emergency stop.

That way it wasn't a 3,2,1, go, type of stop. As soon as I saw a shadow touch, I was on the brakes. That simulates the suddenness of a car pulling out etc. It is my belief and hope that in doing that, I'm building the type of muscle response that is closer to real world (minus the adrenaline) but closer that in an empty parking lot.

I think thats a great tip, Thanks.