stefanm

Don't hold you clutch whilst braking, this can and will in the case of emergancy braking lock your wheels, as far as I know your braking bias should be between 60-70% front and 40-30% rear for road use, practice emergency stops on a straight empty road, it helps, I have only been riding for 3 weeks, i have done lots of practice braking and have had to do many real emergancy stops and braking since. Maybe I have got a few things wrong here, if so hopefuly someone more experienced will correct.

pritish

.................

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Old Fox

Pritish: would help a lot if you could reveal the reason behind this mystifying smiley!

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pradeepa

Sandeep Sir, it is written that on slippery surface, one should use the rear brake instead of the front brake. What are your opinions on this and if so, will the rear not skid because of the loading factor?

Old Fox

Yes, using the rear brake is recommended in 'low traction' conditions. Reasons? Two:

1. If you lose the front wheel i.e. if the front wheel slides, it is almost impossible to avoid the resulting fall. With the rear sliding, the chances of recovery are still bright.
2. Since you will anyways be riding at slow speed in slippery conditions, just using the rear brake can give you enough 'safe' retardation to get you to a safe stop.

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sooraj_vs

Guys..did the same mistake again..:-( It was raining lightly. I was riding my friend's platina. Then, there was an auto wala preparing for a U turn, may be a 50m infront. He was just moving to the center, slowly, and was giving indication. I, to my instinct, simply sounded the horn. I still dont know why, but that auto wala was surprised and suddenly stopped, right in the middle of the road, right infront of me. There was nothing much i could do. Pressed the rear one, which instantly got locked, skidded, and fell. I was lucky enough to walk away with only 3 stitches and some bruices. I blame the bike. It has stupidly lock maniac rear brakes.

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sheelpriye

Why use the rear brakes and even if you use, why grab it?

Brakes aren't switches. Progression and modulation is the key.

@Pradeep - Try to gauge the traction levels. The front lever provides immense feedback and shall protest prior to locking up and you shall slide only if your wheels are pointed in either direction.

It had rained heavily yesterday and while braking hard, my toe triggered the rear brakes.(I left it at that moment) It slided, but as OF said, its safe & predictable, but once I braked hard with the front, the bike stopped real quick. (Helps if you blip and go down the 'box)

Nothing shall help more than riding as much as you can and practicing emergency braking maneuvers. (I am culprit and miss my riding nowadays due to work )

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princesirohi

a few days back, i was touring with my wife, it was around 9 PM and i was cruising comfortably at around 80 KMPH, suddenly there was a patch of road which was freshly laid ( may be a few days back) so perfectly smooth but it had lot of sand on it ( the way they put it to avoid sticking) but this time the sand was a little more than usual, it was a stretch of around 20 mtr.s, after covering around 5 mtr.s i saw that the patch ends and there is a pothole or rather a ditch approx. 1 feet deep and throughout the width of road (so there was no way to steer around it), i started braking progressively using front more then rear (but using some amount of rear brake) soon i realized i have reached the limit, and any more application of front will cause it to skid since i am on a layer of sand, so increased rear brake pressure and after some time it locked and bike skidded a few mtr.s with rear locked and front still maintaining same amount of brake but front wheel not locked. since i was riding double seat, i think the rear took some time to lock, and that saved us. we came to near stop and bike speed was reduced to say around 5-10 KMPH so it can take the plunge into 1 feet deep trench slowly. and then we stopped safely.

now, i want to know, in these conditions, was my technique correct.

i am expecting really experience riders like old fox to comment.

my approximation regarding distances in mtr.s may be slightly incorrect or at best only approximate.

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cmahajan

Over these years, I have developed a habit of using the front brake 70% and rear brake 30% at normal times.

When I have to brake hard, I apply both the front and rear brakes simultaneously for a fraction of a second (this gives the initial big retardation) and release both brakes for the next fraction. I repeat this process until I reach a complete halt. This helps me in avoiding a wheel lock or a skid.

Using either of the brakes individually can result in a bad wheel lock and one may end up skidding (learned this from personal experience).

Under normal riding conditions when I am aware that I need to stop after a specific distance, I use engine braking to some extent and shift to lower gears matching the bike's speed. This ensures that the brake usage is minimal.

PS: What I follow may not be ideal but I have not faced any problems using this technique.

Old Fox

There are two ways of looking at this.

1. Imagine your total traction reserves as a pie in your hand. While braking, accelerating or turning, you bite a chunk out of the pie and some gets leftover in your hand to hold on to. Now when you hit a sandy patch, the pie suddenly shrunk to say half its size. A bite as before would end up chewing up your hand. Moral of the story: you in all probability out-rode your headlights i.e. you were riding faster than the speed from which you could safely brake your bike within the distance illuminated by your headlights. Of course when you did brake, the slowing down was almost at the edge of available traction.

2. As for the technique, there was a fundamental flaw. Braking depends entirely upon the weight on the contact patch (keeping other things like coefficient of friction etc constant which were in this case once you were on the sandy surface) Braking with the front, even in such low traction conditions is possible with a sensitive and experienced hand and was the right thing to do. The problem began when you started using the rear brake harder while keeping the front on as before. The front brake takes away weight from the rear and as long as you're using the front brake the rear gets weighed down less. Which makes it easier to lock. The right technique would have been to either continue focusing on using the front brake as best possible with light rear brake without adding the distraction of the stronger usage of the rear or getting partially off the front brake to get some weight back on the rear and then using the rear brake.

The fact is that there is no clear and repeatable technique in situations like the one you've described. You're already too deep into the fight between low available traction and high demand from the rider. You're lucky to have gotten away with just a scary slide. The real skill lies in not just having the skill to ride through a panic situation but in being able to predict and avoid a panic situation in the first place.

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