If you cover the brake just ensure you use the same number of fingers you would normally need to brake to your maximum. for example if you normally use two fingers to brake "cover" with two, if you have one finger on the brake in an emerency that is all you will be able to use to stop and you may not have the strength to stop as quickly with only one finger on the lever!
Don't hit kids. No, seriously; they have guns now!
Well like I said, I have.
It was on an older bike 1988 Moto Guzzi MKIV.
Under normal braking I never did this. (crush my fingers)
But as I was riding trials again I got use to riding like this.
That is leaving two fingers on the braking lever.
A car pulled out from a side street and I had to jump hard on every thing I had and still tapped the cars wheel.
Trust me I was crushing my fingers enough for me to shake my hand after wards.
Now a more modern bike with better brakes etc, this is a problem.
And maybe it was the way the levers were set up and maybe the brakes had old fluid and needed bleeding or just my old bikes brakes.
But not all of us are riding modern state of the art bikes with state of art brakes.
Feel the fear and do it anyway
Don't confuse education with intelligence.
There are alot of highly educated idiots out there.
I got into the habit some years ago of covering brake and clutch all the time. In addition to enhancing braking response times, covering the brake stops my hand "creeping" around the throttle and becoming too pinched on my wrist. The only disadvantage I have discovered from this practice is suboptimal heated handgrip performance in really cold weather.
"Standing on your mother's corpse you told me that you'd wait forever." [Bryan Adams: Summer of 69]
Well, I don't know if this applies to other bikes but..., on my ZXR250 I have 4 settings (or is it 5?) for my brake lever position. On the closest setting I can touch it against the handlebar if I squeeze the handlebar very tightly.
If I set it on the 3rd closest setting I can squeeze the brakelever with all my strength and there's still a 1-2 cm gap. That's where I leave it at when I'm riding...
It is preferential to refrain from the utilisation of grandiose verbiage in the circumstance that your intellectualisation can be expressed using comparatively simplistic lexicological entities. (...such as the word fuck.)
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. - Joseph Rotblat
I had to think on this do I or do I not...Deppends on my ridding mood, and if I am in tight twisties or not, I will cover the front brake with say 2 fingers... and will use it do buttoning off or controling of speed into the twisties... of if unsure of the road layout
My profile pic shows me doing it so I guess I do...natural instint I suspose, but have another pic on a sweeper and I am not doing it...
I don't usually cover the brake under normal conditions, Generally when im out on the twisties in the country side i cover the front brake with a couple of fingers just incase i need to correct a line, But being careful to just feather the brake mid corner if need be as the R6 likes to stand up straight mid corner with the front brake on just a wee bit hard.
Surely the braking action depends on the situation inviolved?
The instructor was commenting on a carpark manouvering situation, during which the student would have been probably practising slow tight circuits, cornering and throttle control. In this situation it is textbook practise not to have one hand doing two finely controlled motions (braking and throttle control) when you've got a right foot available to take up the braking duties. It is also textbook practise not to use the front brake when cornering and a carpark exercise mainly involves cornering.
From my perspective I reckon the braking situation needs to be assessed before brakes are applied (gravel, oil, white lines, wet road etc). If you are covering the front brake during normal riding then chances are your first reaction is gonna be to heave on the front brake whether it's the right thing to do or not. You'll probably get away with it but I don't know that it's a good habit.
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