How to brake quickly and safely

[Disco Dan]

Just remember that 3, 4, 5 & 6 are pretty much in parallel and take about 1.5 seconds to complete.

Whilst you should try and get a feel for where your rear locks, if it does then forget about it, just concentrate on your front brake. If your front brake gives you 90% of your stopping power then should not 90% of your attention be on it?

Do pull your clutch in early. If you don't then if the rest of your braking is going well then you will probably stall the bike well before you come to a real stop, this is NOT good if you want to keep going. If you are trying to stop do you really want the engine to be driving the rear wheel? Also how are you going to set the right gear for your new speed?

If you are getting in to a situation where you think you may need to stop fast, then ease off the throttle, cover clutch and brake with FOUR fingers, position your feet ready for brake and gear change. Then if you need to stop you can execute your pre-planned / practiced response. If you think 4 fingers is too mant then measure your stopping distance with two fingers then four fingers

I would def aggree with the clutch part, surely it would take longer to stop the bike in an emergency (when your not engine braking) if you its still in gear and clutch engaged. But then without assisstance of engine on back wheel, surely it would lock easily?

arrrggghhh...

off to the carpark... to practice!

[XP@]

Correct!
not quite.. if it locks.. release brake, then apply pressure again.. not so hard.

Hmmm, I have heard that before. My theory is that either you know where the lock point of your rear brake is through practice or you don't. If you do then your rear should not lock, if you don't then locked or not locked is unimportant. Your attention is far better placed on the front where most of your stopping is happening.
If your rear does lock then ignoring it is probably the best thing you can do. The most urgent thing on your agenda is the reason you are stopping, not a locked back tyre. So why divert your attention from impending doom in front to a relitavely inconcequential event behind you?

Stalling the bike is not a good practice.. or safe! keep tap tap tapping your left foot on the gears until you have come to a complete stop & can then safely put your left foot down.. & you are in first gear ready to take off again quickly if need be.

It took me bloody ages to get that one right (and a few tyres with flat spots on them) but it has been worth it. But to do it you do need your clutch in from the start.

You sound like the intructors I had!!! Are you????

Nope, but I listened to them :-)

[Transalper]

It surprises me how many of you are prepaired to only aim for 90% (or whatever it is that only the front brake gives) of your stopping power in an emergency, thus taking 10% longer to stop than needed or crashing 10% harder than needed.
I for one want to stop 100% as quickly as the bike can and to that end have spent time training my right foot to press that rear brake lever quickly but nicely when i get a fright.
If you haven't got the hang of using the rear brake in a hard stop then for cripes sake go out and learn to how to apply some rear without jumping on it too hard.... Learn it, practice it, make it instinctive so you don't have to waist your concerntration thinking about it while doing the rest of the emergency stopping manouver. If you shoud become aware of the ass coming around it's so simple to just lift the right foot and reapply softly again.

[jonbuoy]

Having the clutch engaged with a closed throttle will not reduce your braking effectiveness - see how fast you go with a closed throttle on a road. Its not always easy to tell if you have locked the rear - some tyres don't even squeal or chirp much - the first thing you will notice is the backend trying to overtake the front. Some bikes have a really strong rear brake with bugger all feedback. But different bikes need different techniques for stopping - on a cruiser you probably want to use more rear - on a sportsbike you don't want to use much - if your really hard on the brakes your rear wheel won't even be on the ground at all - or just skipping which would only take a touch on the rear to lock it.

[Grantasaurus]

I've always thought the main reason you apply the rear brake is not because it slows you down drastically more quickly, but because it provides a correcting moment, and prevents the back of the bike trying to overtake the front.
It helps stop the braking becoming very messy...
My 2c...

[Grantasaurus]

Oh yeah, and Disco Dan, congrats on getting the coolest learner bike there is....
Not that I'm biased or anything.

[TerminalAddict]

so tonight I went out hunting for potential hoons roads.

There's this one I went throught about 3 years ago, which I thought might be worth taking a look.
so I'm trundling along with the speed growing . .soon enough I 'm sitting on about 145-150
I see a few corners come up, judge them, and think .. meh .. back off to 130 . .go through the corners.
Then I see another corner I judge the speed using "pointers" (trees on the side of the road etc etc) and I have a barely conscience thought about holding 130 .. then I see a glimpse of a corner speed sign, which is mostly covered by bushes, it says 55 .. so back down to about 120 as I approach the corner.
I also didn't notice that the road dipped down about half a metre before the corner.
The road surface of the corner appears just as I get a glimpse of the rest of the yellow sign
..........55km
.......gravel road

Front brake goes on as hard as I can, and something tells me I should feathering the back brake.
Clutch comes in and I bang down 3 gears to second.
Front starts to shake so I ease front brake, which caused the back to lock, just for a split second.
Split second descision time:
off back brake completely,clutch in, hard as I can muster on the front ... front locks for a split second .. so off the front, then hard on the front brakes again, as hard I can .. fuck gravels is inches away from front tyre .... let go of everything .. no brakes at all, engine breaking in second.

Peel my eye balls off the inside visor to catch a quick glimpse of how fast I'm going as I hit the gravel ......
40kph

gently ride home very sedately to allow my testicles out from where ever they were hiding.

whew !!

Emergency breaking practice: check

[cowboyz]

every bike has its own little traits. hopefully one will learn these about their bike before the need for evasive action. I like the rear for settling the bike. The main overriding idea is always to keep the wheels turning.

[Transalper]

This makes very interesting reading (found from the survival links thread)

[jonbuoy]

Interesting for sure - are they using valve driven telemetry in Canada?!!

[jonbuoy]

Edit - I see its a full size apple mac - title should be stopping distances with an apple mac as a pillion. Something doesn't add up about that data - they are saying a Valkyrie can stop in the same time/distance as a fireblade?

[BAD DAD]

Emergecy braking: I usually just stare at the object that I'm about to hit and shout fuuuuaaaaaaaaaak. that was close.

[The Stranger:Me]

RRRS

[Transalper]

... Something doesn't add up about that data - they are saying a Valkyrie can stop in the same time/distance as a fireblade?

They reckon there wasn't much in it, and why not? It's not like they say they are both as fast as each other under acceleration. Different bikes, different weights, different wheel bases, different disc sizes, different road/tyre contact patches, blah blah blah, and the factorys i'm sure tyred to make the bikes able to stop as fast as the can so maybe the factorys finished up with different formulas for stopping the different bikes that really did end up with similar results.
I reckon it'd be interesting to watch or even particapate in a brakeing contest sometime.

[The Stranger:Me]

Concentrate on the front first.
Squeeze, wait for weight transfer then apply more pressure. You are aiming for a point just before lock up.

If you just grab and don't wait for the weight to transfer it is more likely to lock.

Next apply the rear.

On a sport bike it is often of no use using the rear because you will have so much weight on the front even a light touch will lock it up. If the clutch is out (as it should) you will have the benefit of engine braking on the rear.

If you apply rear first
1) You loose time on the most effective brake
2) As you do apply the front and the weight transfers the rear unloads and starts to skid, thus reducing it's effectiveness.

If you apply them at the same time, see 2 above.

So to summarise.
Front first.
Allow weight to transfer and get front working at it's most efficient.
Apply rear if you will get anything out of it.
Eyes up and ahead. After watching hundreds of emergency braking sessions you soon see, the ones who look down head that way.