I saw Aaron Slight do a brake test at the recent HRC dat at Taupo - he cam flying in to the pits and nailed the brakes - there was a small chirp from the tyre and it just stopped...very quickly. It looks awesome and having ridden the non ABS bike which has awesome brakes, this must be a fantastic system. despite not being a fan of combined brake systems I would buy this one.
I find that ABS works well on bigger road bikes and have had no problem with it. I would buy a bike with ABS again. I ride one with ABS and one without.
Ride it until the wheels fall off...
Yer, that new Honda system is supposed to be fantastic, but is quite different to how the existing systems work. The honda stuff is completely brake by wire with the ECU dealing with the braking forces. TWO mag has a great write up about it. Next gen ABS for bikes and it's available now on the '09 CBR's.
Ridden the Bandit with ABS for the past year....the only problem it gives me is on my gravel drive way...... on the road is a sresponsive as other normal brakes, just takes a little to get used to th erelease it does when you break heavily.
You know , when you lock up on this sucker it locks release locks etc.
Still happy with it though.
Please NOTE: If I offend you with any of my posts or comments, please remember that.
1. I do it on purpose
2. I dont give a shit
3. Tell some one who cares.
I've always wanted abs but could never get rid of the spare tire....as for abs braking, could come in handy in the wet, I wouldnt rely on it though in case it failed. Still gotta know how to brake properly.
Nup.
Can still trail brake with either the rear pedal or the front lever, or both.
It's not like Microsoft, that says, "Trust us - we know what you want better'n you do; leave it to us", and takes away all control AND completely ballses things up. The DCBS takes a week or two to get used to, but once you do get used to it, it's great! On my VFR, when you brake with the pedal, it operates two pistons on the rear brake caliper, and one in the front. A proprtioning valve (like on a car) sorts out the pressure. When you brake with the front, two pistons on each side operate, and a lever on the left fork tube operates a valve that operates the middle piston in the rear. When you use both, all pistons operate.
The nett result is you can use the rear brake to stop reasonably quickly on slippery surfaces like gravel or wet slippery roads, or brake with just the front and get some braking from the rear too, or both, and stop pretty quickly.
Downsides are not the operation, but the added complexity, a little extra weight, and a lot of extra time and care when bleeding the system.
The new E-DCBS+ABS system supposedly doesn't add much weight at all, and in practice is so transparent that the testers didn't know it was fitted until they were told. There's no pulsing of the lever as the ABS cycles, as it uses a pump operated by the levers.
... and that's what I think.
Or summat.
Or maybe not...
Dunno really....![]()
I've used the 1999 version of BMW's ABS and have the following comments:
You have to brake "correctly" to get it to work properly; ie you have to use front and back together. In the dry, in a staight line one brake will do, but ifyou go over a damp patch or white line, the brake will be let off to allow the wheel to rotate, then the brake comes on again, actually increasing your braking distance and giving you the shits as you seem to accelerate towards the object you're trying to avoid. This system was quite simple in that each brake was independently ABS'd, so I had to adjust to it. Playing around on a very tar-snaked road in the wet, I could just slam on both anchors and stop dead. This took a bit of getting used to (in my head) but wasn't a fair test of the typical panic-stop situation - when I'd grab the front first out of habit, and then go for the back, by which time the front had been let go and the brakes were all off until the ABS and I put them on. But that's a reflection on my poor technique - when used as designed, they're most effective.
Newer high-end systems, like the new Honda one may feel a bit different to the older ones as they balance front & rear depending on all kinds of things (wheel speed, vehicle speed, lever pressure, balance between front & rear, acceleration this way & that, etc) to apply maximum stop when you ask it to, regardless of what levers you're pushing & pulling.
As the afore-mentioned TWO article says (if it's the one I think it is) it's about time bike makers added this type of thing to bikes, or else we'll be legislated away as our crash stats are so bad compared to cars (thanks to cars having had ABS, seatbelts, airbags & crumple zones not made of flesh & bone for decades. I reckon a big cannon mounted to the front of most bikes could help to redress that, though.
BM-GS
Auckland
The linked ABS on my ST1300 literally saved my life while on the maiden voyage from picking the bike up from Langlands. Picture wet dark road, pissing down. Lowlife scum in cage pulled out of the forest in 100km/hour area directly into my path. Missed him by less than a metre. Without ABS I believe I would have still been travelling many metres further before stopping.
Test rode the R1150R for BRM years ago - featuring Tele Lever and linked ABS, ie no front dive at all. The Guy from BMW said, take it on a quiet road, check that theres no one behind you (!) and hit the front brakes full noise at 150 km/hr. This is NOT a natural thing to do. The result was astounding - totally drama free. As if someone had pushed the freeze frame on a DVD.
"If you haven't grown up by the time you turn 50, you don't have to!"
ABS
On Gravel
The reason ABS is an issue on gravel is that the system is checking the rotation speed of the front and rear wheels. On gravel the wheels can stop rotating faster and this wrecks havoc with the ABS algorithms and folks report having no brakes for long periods going down hill or when trying to stop. The ABS thinks the bike is sliding or has lost traction and releases brakes to regain traction. Dual purpose bikes with ABS sometimes have an ABS on/off switch to deal to this problem. That is ABS will never work so switch it off when off road or on gravel.
ABS on a surface that does not have a consistent co-efficient of friction is always going to be a problem. So that means sand would still be a problem.
ABS In General
ABS on bikes has generally been getting better with systems up till recently reporting some serious faults. Google is your friend for specific bike makes but Honda sounds pretty good.
BMW is a disaster. There have been reports of a number of crashes as a result of the ABS on the BMW F800. When braking for a stop and not even braking hard, on a dry road, in a straightline.... so no chance of having an issue. If you hit a bump or dip the size of a catseye once in a while you lose ALL brakes, both front and rear, and this stays gone for up to two car lengths.
Guys have ditched there bikes, found ways to disable the ABS and still today BMW has a policy of deny, deny, deny on a bike that can kill a rider.
I consider it will only be a matter of time before this BMW ABS on the F800 kills a rider. The fact that there are already reported crashes and numerous near misses is of serious concern.
All reports I've heard on the Honda have been good. I don't know which system the Triumph use but BMW uses a Bosch system and I can't recall the model but can find it if you want to know.
ABS kicks in when you jam on the anchors hard and you get the pulsed feel as the brakes are applied and released. In the 2 1/4 years I've had ABS it has never activated except in two circumstances;
1/ when I want to demonstrate how it works.
2/ To fail. I've had 8 failures. Of these one was a near miss where I shot into a round-a-bout because all the brakes had been released and shot behind a Jeep Cherokee. Seconds earlier I'd have been talking to it's grill.
BMW have designed a new system for the F800R with an adjustment for dealing with bumps but have chosen to make no fix available to the F800 S and ST.
Personally now with my experience I'd be very wary of ABS and either wait till it gets better, or do a thorough search for a particular model or look for a bike where it can be switched. I would never ever, ever, ever buy a BMW with ABS.
Hope this helps.
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