More weight doens't make longer stopping

[dantama]

Originally Posted by skiman

Here's my take on the subject maybe in fact you could stopped just as fast fully loaded and you could with just a rider on the bike but how many of us in the real world want to grab the binders that hard on a weekend cruise with the wife on back and some luggage so for practical everyday real world riding you need more room to stop unless you just love braking so hard that the bike feels like it's diving in to turn 2 at Bristol motor speedway every time you stop. Bottom line leave extra space and live to ride another day

This is one of the post from the last link that I posted at the top. It relates to some of your thoughts.

*They(the MSF) now understand that adding weight does not increase stopping distance and are in the process of trying to understand why tests between a bike with and without a passenger tends to show longer stopping distances with the passenger."

They have been interviewing various motorcycle engineers trying to get that understanding. One such interview, with a BMW engineer, had that man say that he has observed that riders with a passenger tend to release (ease off) their front brake when the weight transfer has the passenger push into the back of the rider. He goes on to say that he believes the rider feels at that time that the rear end of his bike is coming off the ground (Stoppie) and therefore aborts the braking effort.

In any event, I proposed that the MSF instruct - at least suggest - that students who plan to ride with a passenger should practice maximum braking with a passenger aboard so that they get a feel for how much braking pressure is needed and not get locked into the muscle memory of what that threshold is based on experience without a passenger. They have agreed that the educational message should be provided but did not commit to do so.*

[AlabamaNomadRider]

I feel so much more informed now. Now what were we talking about?