Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

@ Zunkus, I have been reading this too. It's good, very concise and easy to read, and Kenny Roberts is happy to write the foreword so it can't be bad. I've been practicing "emergency stops" from the speeds at which I am prepared to ride, and I've picked up some other good tips.

I downloaded it, but if anyone would like the link (which I s'pose I shouldn't post) then pm me.

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

What's also interesting is that racers drill big holes or cut away half of the area in the rear brake pads to reduce the friction area, the idea is to provide slowing down from the rear and not abrupt stopage resulting in slides and accidents. If this is such a known fact to racers, why are manufacturers making stronger rear brakes on sportbikes?

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

Perhaps front suspension has improved to the extent that the rear brake is more usable in those situations on the newest bikes, or perhaps it's the Nicky Hayden "phenomenon". (He has a big ole rear brake disc, much bigger than that of the other riders, I'm sure Señor Pedrosa can enlighten us :) ).

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

I believe having ABS on the rear would only be effective if you were to use the rear brake alone in an emergency stop which is not advisable as approx 3/4 of braking is achieved with the front brakes.

Besides if you had ABS on the rear and while braking heavy on the front and with the weight shift, the tendency is for the rear to loose traction easily so you would not have much of a braking advantage other that not loosing the rear end in which case you go back to not using the rear unless bimbling around between traffic lights.

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

i would like to ride a bike with it so i could make a good determination for my self

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

Talking to my local biker buddies revealed that 90% of the guys who have trouble with overusing the rear brake mostly drive cars during the weak. So sunday riders who may have their minds autoset to car mode mentallity when in a panic situation. I've been riding for 8 years now but still drive a car when the weather's too bad or if I need to carry a lot of stuff. Been driving since I was 14 (bad boy) and now 40, so quite a long car tactics impint in my mind has been moulded now. I've been to a work safety course recently and we've been shown that when you do things repetitively they get hard imprinted into your subconsious mind and that's were you go to when in a panic situation. So its easy to say I won't be hard on the rear brake when you've been doing the action, on a car, for so long. Time is a factor and only time on a bike consiously being easy on that right pedal will put things right. You young guys have it easier. You can start good habits earlier. Lucky you :)

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

I read that dirt riders use the rear brake more than front and have more issues with the front. Any dirt bike riders here can clarify why?

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

zunkus, I'm not a professional dirt rider, but I've taken many many bikes across many many fields (and hills etc).

There's a lot less grip on the mud/grass than there is on tarmac (obviously). Brake too hard on the front end, when you've got reduced grip, and you're at higher risk of not only sliding the front wheel, but it also moving sideways. If/when it goes sideways, you're in big trouble unless you're a master in the art of balance.

Rear brake on the other hand, you can step the rear out quite happily, and even get too hard on the power to kick the back out, and so long as you're OK at balancing, and you're putting most of your weight through your feet, you're OK. Stepping the rear out under power helps to 'over-steer' the bike around a sharp bend, where you might not want to get leant over as much (how many dirt riders do you see getting their knee down?).

Slightly OT: About the repeated action being printed on the brain... Reminds me of a fun story. When I was younger, we (me & parents) took a day out on the Norfolk broads, on a boat. At the time, my dad was driving it, he'd driven busses for the last 40something years, so was used to big vehicles, but the whole "steering at the back" (ie, driver at the front, propeller at the back does steering) took him a while to get used to. We came up on a bridge, with a boat in front of us. This boat was towing a smaller boat, with a HUGE mast. I could see that it wasn't going to fit, so told the old man to stop. He didn't click until the mast went snap! The result was that he tried to stamp his foot on the brake pedal... which obviously wasn't there in the boat!! I still haven't let him live that one down!

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

Dirt riders use the rear brake for things other than stopping as well.

Using the rear brake while in flight over a jump will help to correct your position in the air and along with throttling to apply torque to the rear.

Locking the rear will tend to bring the front end down while throttling will bring it up. Locking the rear is very important in motocross. Have you ever seen them take a massive jump and see the front end suddenly pitch down to land that's due to locking the rear.

Re: ABS on rear brake only
 

Indeed. People who claim to use only the front brake when on gravel are either:

a) Using it very lightly and taking an age to stop.
or
b) Deluded and not aware of what they are doing.
or
c) Crashing a lot of the time they ride on gravel/heavy mud.

If you pull the front hard on gravel (I mean actually riding on gravel, not just a few small loose stones on the road) you will lock the front up and there's a fair chance you'll crash. There is a reason that dirt track bikes (whose riders, it's fair to say, are more competent at riding on poor surfaces than most people) don't have a front brake. Clue: It's not just for weight saving. ;)

A very experienced senior IAM observer's comments on the matter, "You want 80:20 front:rear in the dry, 50:50 in the wet 0:100 on mud/gravel."

I'd say on modern bikes, it's probably more like 85:15 in the dry and personally I can (and regularly do) use about 15:85 on gravel.

As northwind points out (and the police rider's handbook agrees with him, almost word for word). The primary advantage of ABS is that the majority of riders (apart from when they balls it up, seconds before a crash) underuse the brakes, particularly in the wet, for fear of locking it up.

All IMO, of course. :D