Will be moving these posts to the Braking thread of the Ride Safe section

URL is here : http://www.xbhp.com/talkies/art-safe...0-braking.html

@Aditya: If I'm very mildly leaned over, and a biker comes across my path in the distance, I would pick a path which I think Darwin's Discipline is vacating, steer/counter steer and accelerate quickly out of that location. Braking and slowing down IMO will only slow your progress out of the potential danger zone.

Secondly, if you're leaned over and the bike tries to straighten up, use your weight to keep the bike leaned over. That said, don't pull the bike down and wash out

@aditya--Countersteer and look where you should be going, NOT at the obstacle.

don't make the bike lean much, give it as much contact patch as you can, you should hang off keeping the bike as straight as possible, chicken strips are for track

ride as much as you can, there is no better way to learn than practice.

And before I forget, that disconnect your rear brake thing was a joke. But if someone really did that, and it helped kicking the habit of using the rear brake too much, I guess the purpose is served.

I read up on countersteering but cant seem to really understand how it works. Its like drifting a car, yes? I'd love it if someone could show me how its done. Tried it a couple of times but scared of dropping the bike

Aditya: Go here

many ppl think that the way one rides on the track is not the way one shouldnt ride on the streets. The answer to that is ofcourse blowing in the wind and the answer is that one simply shouldnt ride on the streets like one does on the track. What it however simply means is one should be riding maybe at 50% or 60% of ones riding potential on the streets. At the track you can push yourself to beyond 100%
So basically it boils down to riding slow on the streets and fast on the track.
Does braking, throttle control, body position also change on the track and on the street.
NO...whatever you learn at the track are simply the most effective tools to handle your bike and to keep it stable. And why would you not want to keep the bike stable on the streets. So not using the rear on the streets isnt so weird because only racers do that at the tracks.
Using the rear is too much of a trouble with too huge a risk with minimal rewards. Hence the common advice of ignoring it. You can ofcourse use it as much as you want. You will however be better off focussing more on the front as in 9 out of 10 times the front is more than sufficient to stop your bike from any speeds.

9 out of 10 times yes. The rewards of using the rear brake are minimal and the risks associated are insane. If you want that ounce of more braking power you have to use the rear brake. That ounce is what I chose to ignore.

On the road make sure you never get into a situation where you have to steer under braking. Its risky as it is on the track...on the streets with multiple unkowns and surface irregularities in the roads its best avoided.
That said u will have times where you just need to brake when steering.
Straighten your bike ....be gentle on the brakes...thats all u can do assuming that you are looking in the right direction.
When you ride everyday try feeling the wheels with your mind. When u brake everyday focus on whats happening with the wheels without looking at them( u cant look at them when on bike anyways). Feel what they are doing..when there are bumps in the road focus on the moments where the wheels are gliding and where they are catching traction again...you develop a sense of traction when you get good at this.
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perfectly said.

this rider rejects everything new. The evolution of sportsbiking and the general consensus of all the racers today is that trail braking should be avoided where possible. The only problem is trail braking shaves off a lot of time on the track so its difficult to pull away ppl from this technique.

^^Thank you for the valuable info Rohan. I totally agree that the front alone is more than sufficient to stop the bike. The rear is useful in wet conditions and helps bring in more braking power when there is an emergency.

There's a well known adage in aviation, particularly for fighter pilots, and it goes like this:

When an emergency arises your performance drops to the lowest level of training.

I have never come across a more realistic observation of deterioration of skills when under hostile fire. Practicing for emergencies is as good as the emergency simulation you do, actually a little worse than that. Which is why you need to practice so much that the needed actions become second nature, a 'reflex'. And practicing the 'right' technique is critical because the 'reflex', once embedded in muscle memory, will not allow you to think and correct it if its wrong.

What Tenhut, csgup1, rossiter and quite a few others have put forth here is about not just the need to learn the skills but the criticality of learning the RIGHT technique. Becoming a proficient motorcyclist is a lifelong endeavor. You are either busy learning new skills or practicing old ones.

Braking is a very 'critical' skill for a motorcyclist. The real art in going fast is to know when to go slow and how to go slow. And getting it right, practicing it right and executing it right is what will keep you alive. Its one major 'vital' in the Vital few and trivial many aspects of motorcycling. Learning braking in real life urban riding situations is about including road traction assessment into your braking action. Practice the gentle squeeze to firm squeeze technique any and every time you brake while riding. Feel the firming up of the front brake lever under you fingers. Scan the road ahead for adjustments to braking. Check those RVM's before, during and after braking. Feel the weight transfer drop the front and know that the rear has gone light by an equivalent amount. Practice each and every time you brake, so much so that you unthinkingly brake like that everytime. Aim for a point to stop and see how well you assessed the distance and braking effort needed. See that little piece of paper on the road, try to steer around it while you brake. Set up your line and entry speed to those turns to perfection. In a well set-up turn, whether on road or on track, you'll not need emergency mid-turn corrections. It is only when you set up a turn on assumptions rather than knowledge of the road/track ahead that you need mid-course corrections.

Incessant learning is essentially what it is all about. Remember that a skilled rider will use his skilled brain to avoid needing those superior skills. Paradoxical but actually the only real way of enjoying your motorcycling and yet staying alive doing it.


Lots of useful information has been shared about 'trail braking' here. I'll add a visual aspect to it and start with a diagram that I've taken from a book 'Sport Riding Techniques' by Nick Ienatsch.



The orthodox riding technique states that we finish all our braking and gear shifting while the bike is upright, enter the turn on constant throttle and just past the apex, feed in the throttle progressively. But the preferred method now is using 'trail braking'. Trail Braking is a technique where the rider progressively reduces his braking force as he gets deeper into the turn and closer to the apex. This progressive and smooth reduction in braking is to use a progressively larger share of traction for turning, a need that hits its maximum at the apex, where the braking input is reduced to zero. Trail braking has two major benefits: 1. It allows for braking while turning, allowing the rider more control over his situation. and 2. The rider can carry speed deeper into the turn and by slowing progressively towards the apex, has more reserve traction to trade for the same needed for turning.

Post-apex, progressively opening the throttle makes for gradual rearward weight transfer allowing the rear tyre time to gain traction and transfer power for acceleration.

In practice, the overlap between trail braking and powering out is a smooth blend, always balancing the available traction to the traction needs.

Trail braking is a difficult skill to master primarily because as you brake during the turn, you put additional loads on the contact patches which are already fighting a hard battle for traction by countering the outward tangential force. Adding braking loads to the equation takes you closer to the edge of the traction envelope and even a slight excess in loading can lead to a washout.

As for the unassailable logic of favouring the front brakes, the related and at times disconcerting nose-dive and what happens when we do so was something I had posted earlier in another thread here quite sometime back. Reproducing the same below to maintain continuity as has been the case with the trail braking part above which is also taken from the same thread:

I guess we need to get back to high-school physics to clear this thing about forward weight transfer under braking, its benefits and demerits in its entirety.
Weight transfer is a physical reality that has to happen, whether there is a suspension system pre se or not. Refer to the fig in my previous mail that I am reproducing below:




Braking produces a force (because the rider/bike combo is in motion and braking means deceleration) that has eventually to act through the front tyre contact patch where it is countered by the force of friction between the road and the contact patch. Since the connection between the contact patch and the rest of the bike is primarily through the fork, a large component of this force travels down the forks. The exact quantum of this force transfer can be calculated by referring to the fig below:





As the forks are raked at an angle to the vertical, the force transferred through them can be calculated as a product of the total force and the Cosine of the angle of application of the force. Here the angle is the 'rake' angle minus 90deg (since the rake angle is measured against the vertical). Assuming a rake angle of 25deg and a braking force of 1N, the force component acting down the forks would be = 1 (N) x Cos(65) = 0.4226. Meaning that some 42% of the braking force shall act through the forks.



Let us assume a ZMA (about 150kg) with a rider weighing 70kg coming to a panic stop. Stock tyres on clean tarmac can give a decelration equal to about 1G i.e. about 9m/sec2

So the total force generated would be like F= M x A = 220 x 9 = 1980N
1980N x 0.42 = 836N = 85kg (appox)

So the forks get pressed downwards by a force equivalent to 85kgs. No wonder they get compressed.

As you can see, the 'softness' or 'stiffness' of the suspension set-up has no meaning for weight transfer. The 'weight Transfer' is a Force that is generated due to braking. It is just that with a softer suspension, you get a larger deflection of the springs, more dive and so it 'feels' like there has been a LOT of weight transfer occurring.

And about Trail Braking: Loading up the front during a turn is not a ‘needed’ thing. It just happens because of braking and also because of the centrifugal force generated during a turn that compresses the suspension. Ideally, a completely unloaded front is the best as all the available traction is there for resisting the slide (the tangential force that wants to slide the bike ‘out’ of the turn). But in the real world, we can only strike a workable balance between the various forces to our benefit.

And suspension dive is what the rider needs the ‘least’ during a turn. The ‘quick steering’ benefit is way offset by the detrimental effects of a bottomed out suspension and an excess demand on the traction reserves.

In a nutshell:

• Learn to depend upon and use the front brake to fulfill most of your braking needs.
• The rear brake is useful mostly under low traction situations or at low speeds where front end dive leads to instability. (Eg: lane splitting as a stop light)
• Braking is not just about 'braking' but also about reading the road that you'll be braking upon.
• Practice, practice and practice but practice right. Learn it wrong and it takes longer to get rid of wrong learning that it takes to learn right. And to know whats right, you have lots of people on this forum and the internet as a vast repertory of information.
  

Yup,
i was referring to traction and surface and safety, rest it is all same,


Is/Should braking throughout the corner be assisted with a wee bit of rear brakes or not?
Do you have to counter-steer more if you aren't using rear-brakes?
(Sorry, if my questions sound like stupid)

Thanks for the inputs guys, i owe you all a beer

I would like to thank everyone in this thread for helping me to change my braking style. I have been using a disk brake for the first time for the past 3-4 months(bought a R15) and therefore didn't have any idea as to the proper way to use it.

I was doing the pumping method till now.close it ...release it....close it.
The bike would dip and then rise.


I have changed it now and I just hold the front brake and squeeze it gradually, till I get the desired results while having the foot slightly on the back brake.Funny part is thats how I used to brake on my splendor.

How good is the usage of engine braking while applying brake??

My context here is everyday riding which includes touring in the hills. This is not about track technique and neither is it about edge of the envelope performance riding. A wee bit of rear brakes during the corner actually assist in a tighter and more controlled line. But the best technique is still the same old-fashioned stuff. Finish with all your braking and downshifting while upright, enter the turn on a constant throttle and compensate for the energy loss of the bike during the turn with a slight positive throttle input. Look as deep into the turn as you can and as you see the turn opening up, get smoothly on the throttle while straightening the bike.

Trail braking needs practice and proper feel on a bike you are used to the most. its not a skill you can use when you're riding an unfamiliar steed.

You will need to use some extra positive force to keep the bike leaned over in case you use brakes, any brakes, mid-turn. All braking while leaned over tends to make the bike stand-up and head at a tangent to the turning circle.


Engine braking is akin to braking for the bike, albeit a milder form but braking nevertheless. No harm at all in using it to assist in the total braking effort. On heavier big singles like the Bullet, engine braking contributes majorly to the braking.

I shall tell you about an incident which happened at around 8pm today.

I was heading home and to my surprise, I see construction material strewn across the road(and next to it is a huge speed breaker). I braked as hard as i could prior to the materials(stone chips/sand, the usual deadly combos) and just downshifted and applied 50% of the brake, so as not to lock up and get thrown and I saved myself.
Practice.

I understood the pointers OF. Thanks.

Say, I am doing some 70kmph and suddenly I have to maneuver around an object(stationery).
Personally, a tap on the rear brake does the trick.
My Question repeated again--
Rode on the hills the last Sunday and trail-braking(Sorry, but I do brake through-out the corner) while maintaining my line(not getting in the mid even) and looking at where I wish to go.
Posting pic of the rear-tire.
^The tire pressure was at recommended level and I was solo.

Edit--I want inputs from riders that when you are leaned over or have to avoid the lunatic who has darted across the road, how do you brake?
Considering--You would be braking and swerving and trying your best not to target-fix.
Thanks, appreciate all the replies/help/tips

In our roads its coomon to see potholes some times large enough to trap anelephant(hypothetically). Most of the times we avoid them somehowbut some times there'll no other way than go through. In that case precise brakin can provide a better cushioning.
Shed ur speed to max possible extend
Release the front brake just a moment before u hit the ditch.It should be such that the nose is rebounded to the max at the time of fall.This gives some extra suspension travel during the fall than falling with the brakes applied.
Experinced guys jus pardon me.I think there is a lot of newbies who should know this, since they are more vulnerable to fall into these ditches.And i didn't see anything regarding this in the posts.Hopin this to be useful.

i will like to correct something out here the wear and tear of brakes either disk or drums depends on the terrain that u are riding. suppose a person has to travel 60km of steep descent and ascent every day. then i assume that his brakes will be wearing out faster then the one who rides in plains.
i come from a hilly region and my brake pads the front one were changed at 5000 km as i ride with a pillion all the time
i will say ask mechanic to check the pad or judge by yourself how effectively your brakes are working from time to time