A wet weather braking secret.

[FROSTY:Me]

Its an oldie but a goodie as we head into winter.Randomish light braking with your front brakes can save your skin. --It warms up the disks ,drives the water off so the brakes work when you want them too-and best of all--they wake up that cager behind you from his cozy little half dream as hes toodling along with his heater on full blast

[paturoa]

I keep just my index finger on the brake when its wet, 2 finger reaction braking will lock my front.

[JimO]

i used to do that on my old Z1R because ths fronty brakes didnt work in the wet ... not work... at all.. put them on and it felt like you were speeding up gets the old ticker working

[diggydog]

i use to do the same thing with one or two fingers which i beleive it gave u more time four error as well, keep them hotter

[FROSTY:Me]

yea one finger is good --just enough brakes to cause a tiny bit of drag and click the brake lite on

[Gremlin]

Another tip, when wanting to purchase braided lines for your bike, its probably not a good idea to have braided lines on the rear brake as well.... thank you previous owner

on the other hand, good for getting you used to the bike sliding around under heavy braking.

Don't forget, you can't just hold your front brake on hard either, do that and you risk tucking the front. You want to make sure that you keep the bike upright, and pulse the front brake.

[XP@]

I used to do the one finger / two finger on the levers but now I try to have no fingers unless i'm in a danger zone or plannig to slow then it is 4 fingers. Why?

I did some car park practice and found once I am committed to a number of fingers that is it. And wet or dry i could get a lot faster and more accurate breaking with 4 fingers.

Also in the winter hands round the heated grips makes for warm hands.

[sunhuntin]

frosty, wouldnt that wear the brakes faster? [thinking along the lines of brake pads....dunno. dumb question]

[BarBender]

Very good tip! Much appreciated.
Frosty - do you have any more going into winter?
This will be my first.

[Madness]

Take plenty of vitamin C.
I burned a tank of gas on Saturday & am paying dearly for it now.... So is the missus, and tomorrow my boss in the form of sick pay, hehehe.

[Crasherfromwayback]

Don't forget, you can't just hold your front brake on hard either, do that and you risk tucking the front. You want to make sure that you keep the bike upright, and pulse the front brake.

'Pulse'?
If you mean squeeze and release the front brakes, I'd have to disagree.
Any split second wasted releasing the lever is time better spent squeezing it!
It's amazing how hard you can use the front picks in the wet if you're careful with how you apply them, and you do it whilst 100% upright.
Smoothly and progressively. Sweet.

[FROSTY:Me]

sorry crasher I dont agree--by applying a bit of brake then a lil pause -Fraction of a second - then hard on the brakes you are loading up the front tyre and suspension. so that when you grab the handfull of brakes and youll be able to brake harder.

[Crasherfromwayback]

sorry crasher I dont agree--by applying a bit of brake then a lil release you are loading up the front tyre and suspension.next time on the brakes and youll be able to brake harder.

And for all I know you may have really manky balls.
But I'll lick them if you can stop quicker than me in the wet doing that.
I'm not washing mine from now on.....

[jonbuoy]

Hey Frosty. Good tip, nothing like going for the brakes at the end of a straight and finding bugger all happens for a few seconds...

[loosebruce]

sorry crasher I dont agree--by applying a bit of brake then a lil release you are loading up the front tyre and suspension.next time on the brakes and youll be able to brake harder.

Yea i dont get it, put abit of brake on then "lil release" how is the release part loading up the tyre and suspension, any realease will cause it to unload and another stab on the lever could risk losing the front!!!!
It's best to be progressive and smooth, like crasher said it's amazing how hard you can brake in the wet, you need to apply brake gently at first let it all load up and haul em on nicely, i can find myself using dry braking markers on the basis that my speed is little down from dry as corner exit is not as high, you can still brake deep into a corner still but man you have to be on it and smooth and i would'nt recomend doing it. Best to brake before and drive through the corner on the gas. Never ever used the back brake in my life apart from being a clown and sliding it, but if im on it the back never gets touched.

Prolly the best advice i can give people for riding in towns/citys in wet conditions is to ride so you dont have to brake in the first place, just cruise, use your engine braking a bit, try it, see if you can get to work without using your brakes much, give yourself generous following distances, slow eariler for intersections, use your head.