Rear brake
 

do any of you guys use rear brake at all under heavy braking? many say they dont touch their rear brake

Yes. I use mine all the time. Personally, I think people who say "don't use the rear brake" are scared of it and don't have the skill to properly modulate it so the rear tire doesn't lock up.

Using the rear while trail braking in a corner helps tighten your line without upsetting the suspension. You can use the front brake as well, but very lightly. As you use more traction for turning the motorcycle, you have less available for braking or acceleration.

I use it softly when coming to a full stop if im coming in hot...

Definitely use the rear brake, almost all the time. Especially under heavy braking.
Mostly during downshift for a quick redlight, so I can blip throttle.
If you lock up the rear, hold it til you stop.
If you lock up the front, you better let go and retry.

Breaking hard, sure.

Not true my buddy uses it an i out brake him every time, my rear tire usually come off the ground braking into turns so it would be impossible to modulate the rear brake. And i find using the front brake to trail brake is much better as it keeps the forks compressed an let you turn in much faster.

I do use the rear brake on one track when im cresting a hill to stop myself from doing a wheelie so i can keep it pinned.

To be honest the front brake can get you into much more trouble. And I believe any experienced rider will tell you this. Rear wheel lockups are easy to control and get out of. Highsides or other occurrences from too much front brake... can be deadly.

Always keep in mind though the front brake does have more force. Honestly you should get into the habit of using both simultaneously.

Front brake has a lot more braking force and is in fact capable of doing 100% of the braking on most sportbikes. When racing, AMA supersport and FX I used front brake only except if I ended up off track or in the dirt.

How does a highside occur because of using too much front brake?

Highsides usually occur because a rider locked up the rear, slid the rear tire and released the rear brake, or because he spun the rear tire and suddenly regained traction after chopping the throttle.

Riders are fearful of using the front brake as hard as it is designed to be used because they receive misinformation about the front brake and because they don't take the time to practice emergency braking or hard braking with the front.

Whether you choose to use front brake only or a combination of front and rear, the front brake more likely has a lot more braking capability than most riders are utilizing. How might you go about improving your overall braking proficiency?

Misti

I'm definitely all front brake when under heavy braking. My reasons being that for my skill level I don't think I have enough control not to lock up the rear, plus, I want to keep things simple.

I do use the rear brake but only in slow speed, controled braking.

Braking is one of my favorite things to practice actually. I use the old tennis-balls-cut-in-half trick as markers on the ground for start-to-brake and stop positions and work on getting them closer together for a given speed. It's most fun with a buddy so you can try and out brake each other.

Interesting since your school (Misti is a CSS instructor) uses the s1000rr for the 2 day camp. And it has "partially" integral brakes so the rear is actuated with the front to some degree, depending on ride mode. As far as I know, even turning off both ABS and TC and using Slick mode won't delink the brake.

So on the track subject, how do ppl compensate for that?

Practice? Never really found a good answer to this myself. I mean in order to find the actual limit of anything doesn't one have to kinda exceed that limit to know where it really is? Which is kinda bad thing when it comes to braking.

Otherwise a person can only REALLY improve to their mental limit, how far they're willing to push things before they chicken out. Leaving a gap between mental and actual limit they may need to avoid an accident / trail brake deeper into the corner / etc...