using the brakes is good sometimes

/braking discussion

 

Agreed for the most part.

The rear brake can be really helpful to help you set lines in tight turns and decreasing radius turns. Using the rear brake will push you down deeper into a turn and can help you to keep a tighter line, just like giving more gas will stand you up. If you are in a turn and are going way wide and have room to go down, a light application of rear can get you onto your line. It takes practice and is pretty freaky, but it's good to know if something is in your way midcorner and you have to miss inside. I wouldn't do this unless you're was comfortable using your rear brake hard in straight line braking though, and modulating it as well. Using it for U-Turns is a good place to start.

 

Found this last night
http://www.sportrider.com/riding_tip...ake/index.html

 

I find that using counter steering while in mid-corner with rear brake feathering will particularly help with the closing down of the radius. It's when you don't pay attention to your bars and just using your brakes will you just make your bike try to stand up and unsettle your line/suspension.

 

Thanks for mentioning the counter steering. I forgot to bring this up, but it is vital. It's almost unconscious to me I guess.

 

For the most part, it is a pretty unconscious act. Anyone who leans their bike over at speed is doing it, regardless of whether they're actively thinking about it or not.

 

I try to use my breaks in unison and harmony with one another, with the front brake in the lead, and the rear following, much akin to how a dance is designed. There may be times within that dance when it seems the front break (leader) is calling all the shots. Yet the rear brake is ever present, waiting for its cue to act, to ensure there is no misstep, no falter, no fall. That cannot be quantified with a percentage.

Emergency breaking follows much the same pattern, only the forces are increased, and the timing between measures becomes infinitely small. Yet the "dance" remains the same.

Perhaps a bit queer, this rambling treatise on how I break, but it is something that I don't know how else to describe, except, maybe, in a word: Intuition. We all have that, (I hope) innate ability to make those tiny corrections when they are needed. Intuition happened to each of us the first time we got up on two wheels and stayed there.

 

I suppose this is the appropriate thread for my questions.

I use both brakes all the time when coming to a stop. So far twice in the last couple hundred miles (last 2 days) I've had to make a quick stop at a stop light from about 45 mph. I noticed that my back end will get squirrely and shimmy side to side when I'm at about 10 mph and will continue until I'm stopped. It takes some steering correction to keep it straight and to stop. It doesn't sound like my rear is locked up because I'd assume that I'd hear it.

Maybe this is my newbness but is this normal? Or is my bike in need of some sort of alignment? Or is it oily conditions near the intersection?

Thanks for the help.

 

Honestly I just squeeze both front/rear as equally as possible while trying hard not to lock the rear.

 

I've locked up my rear a few times, never heard it. Have you ever done a burnout? Have your heard your rear tire when it's lost all grip?

When your rear locks up, it'll start shifting left and right based on the smallest amount of inputs, it's normal. Each time, except once, when I've had my rear lock up I've just let it do its own thing. Unsettling, but so long as your front maintains traction, your rear will come back into line. The last time, I had to emergency brake and had both brakes compressed, I'm guessing the fact that your rear lifts up will make your rear more likely to lock up (i.e. less traction). Also, being in the middle of the lane gives you more of a chance of sliding over oily garbage because of cars that sit at lights and drip everything from coolant to oil.