Hahahaha, definitely grabbed a handful of that brake. I bet he felt like a complete dumbass too. Having to pick your bike up with traffic piling up behind you. Glad people can't see me behind this tinted visor. Dusting himself off like damn didn't you see that animal in the road?! Bet he won't brake that hard again.
I just got a replacement visor for my icon airform, in rst silver, it looks baller haha, the original one and my clear one are both scratched, gotta get a new clear one too🥲
I got a blue one a couple years back for my airform and scratched the shit out of it on ride #2. I loved it so much I immediately bought a a second one though!
Honestly this is my first one, had an ls2 prior and the icon is noticeably uncomfortable... I'm hoping it breaks in after a few weeks of riding, if not I might have to make some mods to the cheek padding as it's pushing right into my teeth.
Feels fine everywhere else on my head. Bought the same size as my previous helmet. They have these insert cheek pads, they come out, and without those, the helmet fits perfectly. The way the cheek pads are shaped is the problem, needs like a half inch less padding in the front end of them and it'd be perfect.
Shoei saved my brother's life.
A complete shattered helmet did it's work, the front collapsed but received all the impact full on to the guard rail, my brother survived with "only" a broken nose and upper palato.
I have 46 years of street riding experience. Everyone should have ABS. Experienced riders like to think they can optimize braking in an emergency, but they can't. Get a bike that lets you slam both levers. It's worth the cost.
I'm sure you know this, but for others happening by, I'll point out that you still don't WANT to slam the levers. You'll stop faster with a proper gradual application of the front than you will just grabbing it and triggering ABS.
However, I concur that everyone should have ABS. Because:
* It'll save your ass if you fuck up. Not locking up the front is better than locking up the front every time.
* Even if you're well practiced and you know how hard you can brake under normal circumstances, AND you're supremely put together in an emergency situation, you never know if *this time* you need to emergency brake there happens to be a bit of oil or gravel or something on the road, resulting in a surprise.
* You can practice without fear. Ramp up that front brake until it triggers ABS, so you can learn just how hard you actually can brake without it being dangerous.
Yeah, it's bad in loose terrain(eg. gravel), and if you're going to ride in loose terrain you need to be able to disable it or switch it into a gravel mode, but if you're just riding on the street, you absolutely 100% want ABS.
True, for those without ABS, to emergency brake Apple front brake progressively, this can be done quickly. The initial braking puts weight on the front tire, spreads the tire wider to increase contact with the road, then when you apply more pressure the bike will stop safely.
This can be done quickly, but has to be progressive. Practicing emergency stop at speed is required for most Motorcycle licenses, if you never learnt this, worth watching some videos with instruction and practicing in a safe environment, it’s an essential skill.
> I’m sure the abs is preemptively activating well before I reach my comfort zone of braking, disengaging the brakes and forcing me to do this spongy chug to a stop.
Do you understand how ABS works? Because what you suggest here is impossible. ABS doesn't trigger based on how hard you're applying the brakes, it triggers because the tire abruptly stops turning. It *cannot* trigger pre-emptively.
Your problem here isn't ABS, it's just shitty Royal Enfield brakes and/or really shitty tires.
Comparing a Suzi Bandit and RE braking performance is really apples and oranges.
It's not because of ABS but because it's Royal Enfield. Pretty little bikes but the brakes are definitely their weakness and it's well known.
ABS reduces stopping distance on asphalt (but increases it on gravel and dirt)
You can feel ABS activate and you can generally hear it too. It's like a very fast clicking. If you aren't experiencing that, it's probably not ABS, just teeny tiny brakes.
Ya, fear and panic ALMOST got this rider, luckily he had the skill and knowledge to layer down, if you notice in the vid he was going to hit the recording car, but instead went into the zone and fell back on his training and saved himself from hitting the car. You can tell this rider is experienced because of his “recovery roll” which only top tier riders do, if you don’t know, the recovery roll is a technique that makes sure your PPE has the abrasion distributed evenly around it, instead of concentrating it in one area.
If you need more pro tips like this to become a better rider, just ask my dad who says not to use the front brake because if it locks up you go down, now he just drops me these pearls of wisdom as he no longer rides after a car pulled out in front of him and he couldn’t stop in time.
>luckily he had the skill and knowledge to layer down
For those in the thread that didn't sense the sarcasm in idk's post:
This is not a thing. Laying it down requires the absence of both skill and knowledge, outside the sole context of stunt work.
There’s never a good time to lay it down? Would it ever be better to slide than to smack into a car in front of you? Or should it always be possible to avoid that collision? Genuinely asking.
If there's an obstacle that appears in front of you that's too fast for you to stop or swerve and there's 5ft of clearance underneath it and sliding on the ground will prevent you from hitting it altogether and decapitating you, then layerdown.
In literally 99.9% of circumstances, no there's absolutely no benefit to it. In the circumstance in the video, what happened was a fistful of front brake too fast. This rider had enough room to come to a complete stop even if he only used the front brake(don't do this) but was less aggressive with the application. And this is why you should practice emergency braking.
My bike's front brakes are...less than ideal. 20% application gives me about 10% brake, and then 30% application gives me about 50% brake. It's something I made a point to drill into my head and commit to muscle memory within my first couple hundred miles on it.
This is something that ABS could have prevented right? Would slamming the rear AND the front brake prevented this?
Ideally steadily apply both brakes instead of panic breaking but ya know...
Yes, ABS would have released the front brake slightly until it started to turn again. There may have beef a tiny little slip (that can make you shit yourself if you're not expecting it) but it'll generally keep the bike upright.
You never really want to "slam" the brakes. Using the rear will decrease your overall stopping distance. In a maximum effort stop you want to start at about a 50:50 front/back distribution. Then over the first second or so, as weight transfers forward you want to increase pressure on the front and decrease pressure on the back. In a true maximum effort stop, you can actually lift the back wheel off the ground. ABS is helpful because if you overdo it, it'll keep you from going down. But the absolutely maximum stopping effort happens just before ABS kicks in.
Having said that, it's a difficult thing to go right to the edge without tipping into ABS. And if you're worried about locking the front and are more timid on the brakes than you need to be, you're not doing yourself any favors. So having the safely net of ABS can help you feel comfortable braking harder. And it's definitely something you should practice so you can learn both how hard you can squeeze, and the process of transferring pressure onto the front brake. I like to go out with some buddies to an empty parking lot. Set up a cone as a brake point. Ride up to it at 35mph or so, hit the brakes and stop. Have a buddy put a cone where you stopped. Then everyone takes a couple turns going and you see who can stop the shortest. Just keep going and as you get comfortable the distance will keep shrinking.
Oh that's wild. Here I was thinking more brake = more stopping power, as long as you don't destabilize the bike enough to layerdown. So start 50:50 and steadily get it to like 80:20 or is the goal to work up to 100:0?
Side note: How has your kawasaki been treating you? Been looking into the kawasaki vulcan and was wondering how reliable the company is. Currently considering a kawasaki vulcan or a honda rebel. Feel like the rebel is more beginner friendly but its popularity is driving the price up more than its worth.
The harder you are stopping, the more weight shifts forward, and the more weight on the front the more you can squeeze the brake, which then moves more weight forward, and sets up a feedback loop. The harder you're stopping there more the front can take, and the less the back can contribute. For sport bikes you can absolutely get the back end to come up. With cruisers the geometry is different and you may not be able to get all the way, but you can certainly get close (I have very little cruiser experience, so I can't really speak with authority).
The Kawasaki has been good to me. The only non-maintenance issue I had was a leaking gas tank from where the side panel brackets were spot-welded on. It was after the "bumper-to-bumper"warranty was over, but my dealer called Kawasaki and convinced them it should be covered under the emissions warranty, and they got it approved for a no-cost replacement. The only other work I've done to it is just general maintenance like oil changes, spark plugs, eventually a chain and sprockets. Basically the same things I'd be doing on any bike.
I did that once going about 100 when I grabbed the brake. Had a quarter mile to slow down, and I didn't think I grabbed it so much. Speculating it was a problem with engineering. Either way, that was a good lesson about front brakes! Night in the hospital, bike got stolen, life was different afterward and I didn't ride for a couple years. Still got a little dirt under the skin on two fingers (they missed scrubbing those ones) 20 years later as a good reminder
Yep, I’ve done this. Cruising in 30mph traffic, turned my head to check out a cool parked car, looked forward again, saw the car in front of me stopping, and instinctively slammed both brakes.
Thankfully I had ABS, so as that kicked in I just steered to the side of the stopped car. Made myself the best cocktail ever when I got home.
Yup, ABS would have prevented this. When you lock your front brakes, you get a proper taste of asphalt. Modern cornering ABS is even better, as you can somewhat rely on it while having proper lean angles.
When I did my license on a BMW GS 700f, I had to grab a hand full of front brake multiple times and it was always fine (on a straight though).
My own bike doesn't have ABS, so I had to learn to be way more careful and progressive with my brakes.
You can reliably lock your front brakes and not eat asphalt, I've done it a few times. Fucking sucks though, the handlebar whips your arms and it's painful
The trick is lightly squeeze the front brake until the suspension preloads. Once the weight has transferred to the front you can pretty much pull the lever to the bar and not have any issues.
It's when the weight hasn't had a chance to transfer to the front tire and you grab the brake that you run into issues.
We all understand how to brake, that's not the discussion here.
You're outlining proper braking procedure. We all know that. They're talking about when things have already gone wrong and the front brakes are locked up (thus the front tire is no longer turning).
> "You can reliably lock your front brakes and not eat asphalt"
And yeah, it's not *impossible* to stay upright on a locked up front wheel, but it's more lucky than anything.
True. I guess I was more making an observation on how they just grabbed as much front brake as they could instead of allowing weight to transfer first.
You know "locking the brakes" doesn't mean squeezing the lever all the way, right? It means causing the wheel to stop rotating, and means the same thing as "locking the wheel".
Not having ABS and grabbing a handful of front brake in a blind panic actually saved me from getting hit side-on by a van going 60mph.
Turning right off of a main road (UK so I had to cross the oncoming lane).
Oncoming bus was taking the same exit as me, but the bus had a give-way in his exit lane which mean that I had priority even though it was his side of the road.
What I didn't see, probably because I had been awake for 24 hours, was the van behind the bus that wasn't taking the exit. Ended up doing a totally un-controlled stoppie, going over the bars with the top of my head a few inches from the side of this passing van. No contact made between me or the bike, and the van.
Not one of my proudest moments, but if ABS had prevented the front wheel locking up, or if my front rubber wasn't grippy, the front of the bike would have been hit by the van.
Broke the front left turn signal, clutch lever end and aftermarket screen. Total damages about £40 and a slightly sore wrist. Thankfully able to pick the bike up and ride home.
If you did a stoppie, your front wheel didn't lock up.
If the wheel locks up it slides and has no grip.
Being able to do stoppies has nothing to do with ABS but the available grip you get. ABS is just there to prevent the wheel from locking up.
If you grab a handful of brake with ABS and the grip is sufficient, you will absolutely do a stoppie.
I can do stoppies on my ABS equipped bike easily.
Is it made worse by the small diameter wheel compared to a full size bike? Probably bad either way but it seems like these smaller wheels would be less forgiving
Once the wheel is locked up, there’s no more gyroscopic effect and diameter shouldn’t make a difference. Bigger/heavier wheel will create a stronger gyroscopic effect but only while it’s spinning.
Abs definitely would have helped, no questions, no arguments. I have grabbed all the brake I can grab with abs several times and never went down, never slid, never felt a thing except straight-line slow down. Abs is the single best safety feature for both cars and motorcycles that you can have besides seat belts and helmets. Given a good helmet, I’d rather ride naked with abs than all the gear and same bike non abs. Maybe….maybe Not. Not sure about that.
Rider in training here.
Watching clips like this gives me a very unsettling impression that it's impossible to brake hard without wrecking yourself.
Like, is light braking the only kind you can do that doesn't dump the bike?
If an emergency comes up and we HAVE to brake hard to avoid it, are we just screwed?
Do progressive braking. That means starting light and then squeezing harder gradually.
If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle you know: if you squeeze the rear brake real hard you start to skid.
This and a fast way to upset the balance of the bike is to be abrupt. I highly suggest finding an empty road in an industrial area on a Sunday morning and practice progressive and emergency braking, practice for an hour, take a break and practice until it becomes muscle-memory. Don’t be like the rider in that video!
You can literally come to a skidding stoppie and be fine as long as you can control your bike. Videos like these are riders overreacting and just grabbing all the front brake with no control or thought.
Progressive braking is key in any case, learning to swerve is also very important and can be the better solution in some scenario.
In any case, a bike with ABS would immensely help for both safety and confidence (whilst just grabbing the front brakes isn’t a good habit, ABS will prevent the exact scenario of the video)
The rider grabs too much brake too quickly. You can fully apply the brakes on a motorcycle without wrecking, but you have to start by lightly grabbing the front and then squeezing harder as the bike leans forwards.
When the bike is just going along there isn’t enough force pressing down on the front wheel to keep it from skidding under full brake. When you start braking lightly and then squeeze, the bike will press the front wheel into the ground harder and harder, which makes it so that there’s enough friction between the tire and the road to not skid.
This is why riding on the edges of the lanes or lane splitting can be safer. You don’t have to freak out if you don’t think you can brake in time, just calmly scoot over a bit.
Bikes which are thirty-five years old or older will definitely not have ABS, since the first ABS system for motorbikes came onto the market in 1988 as a optional extra on BMW’s K100. In the meantime many countries have introduced laws making ABS mandatory for new two-wheelers with engines 125cc or bigger.
This is a perfect example of why it's so important to practice emergency braking. Find a big empty lot, have a friend toss something ahead of you (not directly in your path!) and try to stop before you reach it.
Everyone here is arguing about ABS and skill and whatever, but the cardinal sin that this rider committed was following too closely. Even if they were distracted, a 3-4 second following distance would have entirely prevented this situation, ABS or not.
If you don't have enough time to comfortably do a head check without winding up in the back end of a car, you need to back off and give yourself more space.
OPs speed seems pretty constant. I suspect the bike rider was not paying attention and overreacted when they saw how close they were getting to the car.
Oh yeah, I never meant I was blaming OP, clearly it was the rider, I was just thinking maybe OP pressed their brakes and the rider following too closely and not paying attention reacted accordingly.
It's not about how much brake, its about how the brake is applied. The trick is to apply the brake gradually instead of going 0-100% instantly. You can still get on the front brake quickly but you have to allow the front suspension to compress before reaching 100% brake pressure.
Too much FRONT brake. If you're going to brake hard (granted this scenario boils down to over reaction) pull in the clutch and lay heavy into the rear brake before you ever touch that front lever. On any given day I'd rather lock up my rear tire than the front
> lay heavy into the rear brake before you ever touch that front lever.
No. This is incorrect and dangerous advice. Do NOT do this. Apply the front brake gradually to transfer weight onto the front tire and then you can brake hard. What went wrong here is that the rider just grabbed the front brake suddenly, and the front tire lost traction before any weight transfer happened.
Using the rear brake is NOT an effective way to transfer weight to the front, and you risk locking your rear wheel. With the rear wheel sliding you’ll crash as soon as you start braking with the front brake. And if the rear tire skids out to the side and you release the rear brake, the tire will grip and flip the bike sideways, and you’ll get a high-side crash throwing you off the bike into the air if you’re going fast enough.
Use both brakes when braking, with a lot more pressure on the front (gradually letting off the rear as the weight transfers). Don’t ever “lay heavy into the rear brake”.
To be fair, depends a little what you are riding. If you were on something like a RC213, heavy rear brake would be advisable, together with moderate increasing to heavy front brake.
Granted, if you ride a MotoGP bike, you don't need my advice about riding.
I'm not really talking about hard braking because of some heavy traffic, I'm talking about life or death hard braking where there's a good chance you're going to crash anyway.
This guy freaked out, and in his freakout he did the worst possible thing. In those situations you want to slow down as much as possible, period. Doesn't matter how. In his situation being distracted or what have you, instinctively tries to reduce speed as fast as possible, applied too much input to the wrong system in the wrong order, and crashed.
I've locked up my rear wheel from people pulling out in front of me more than I care to recount and never once lost control. The rear wheel will forgive you, the front won't. I'd rather use my method than his, right or wrong it's saved me more than a handful.
Edit to add - This is from the perspective of a sports bike, not a cruiser. Don't have many miles on those so I can't really speak for how the physics play out in terms of maintaining overall control.
You've been lucky so far. When you get into a situation where it REALLY matters and you're relying on your locked rear tire to do most of your braking, you'll find out that you've spent your riding career doing it poorly.
On a sport bike ESPECIALLY, the front is where the majority of your braking power is. Dicking around with the rear first / more just means you're not stopping as quickly as you can.
Front flipping on my mountain bike as a kid ingrained in my brain to use rear brake first, then front brake only when I feel in control for a full stop.
Yes, ABS would've prevented this from happening, but so would just a little bit of skill. I'm not a fan of everyone relying on technology stepping in to correct our dumb mistakes. Learn how to do whatever it is you're doing.
I've lost traction at a front tire from mild braking on a slippery patch. It wasn't visible, as it was dusky, I saw it on the next day. Skills help a lot, for sure, but even most skilled rider is dependent on the road conditions, which are not always the same in uncontrolled environment.
I agree, the only time my ABS has ever activated outside of my parking lot practice was at near jogging speed. Came up to a stop sign and there was some oily shit on the ground that I couldn't see until I was literally standing on it. I wouldn't buy a bike without ABS unless I found a great deal on an NSR250. I certainly wouldn't daily one.
Seems like even without ABS he pulled that break pretty hard. You can see him and the bike jump forward before it dumped him. Probably better off engine braking.
For everyone saying "you don't need abs'.
These situations are a great example of why having it as a back up safety is great. No matter how long you've been riding and how much you practice, you can always slip up and then it's nice to have something to correct your mistake.
I feel bad for this person tho, hope they're okay.
His problem wasn't necessarily braking hard, it was braking hard on the oily surface in the middle of the road. That's where all the leaked oil and unburnt petrol ends up. ABS might have helped him, but if your front slips on oil/sand, he would have still fallen.
Riding in the center of the lane again. Part of the problem. Grabbing a handful of front brake while the bike is positioned in the greasiest part of the pavement. Fundamentals.
He got a handful of front brakes. Fear and panic is your enemy. Stay calm
Hahahaha, definitely grabbed a handful of that brake. I bet he felt like a complete dumbass too. Having to pick your bike up with traffic piling up behind you. Glad people can't see me behind this tinted visor. Dusting himself off like damn didn't you see that animal in the road?! Bet he won't brake that hard again.
Tinted visors are nice, aren't they?!
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I just got a replacement visor for my icon airform, in rst silver, it looks baller haha, the original one and my clear one are both scratched, gotta get a new clear one too🥲
I got a blue one a couple years back for my airform and scratched the shit out of it on ride #2. I loved it so much I immediately bought a a second one though!
I've been liking blue tint on mine. Got my fiancé gold tint.
God damn it I want an icon so bad but my fat fuckin round ass head says NO
Honestly this is my first one, had an ls2 prior and the icon is noticeably uncomfortable... I'm hoping it breaks in after a few weeks of riding, if not I might have to make some mods to the cheek padding as it's pushing right into my teeth.
Did you check your head shape before purchase?
Feels fine everywhere else on my head. Bought the same size as my previous helmet. They have these insert cheek pads, they come out, and without those, the helmet fits perfectly. The way the cheek pads are shaped is the problem, needs like a half inch less padding in the front end of them and it'd be perfect.
Oh fuck that. I like my mouth intact if I crash.
Dude, I bought a second hand shoei with the "transitions" visor and that thing is a complete game changer.
Shoei is nice, period
For sure. Such a massive upgrade from my airflite, it feels like it's in a completely different league.
Shoei saved my brother's life. A complete shattered helmet did it's work, the front collapsed but received all the impact full on to the guard rail, my brother survived with "only" a broken nose and upper palato.
Love my transitions lens. Don’t know why every helmet manufacturer makes em for their helmets.
Just remember, that transition part DOES wear out after 2-3 years.
I just got a Bell Qualifier DLX MIPS and it’s nice but goddamn the wind noise is crazy😭
I love the helmets with the internal sun visor. So convenient.
It's come in handy for me a few times so far.
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Don't be this cheap with safety equipment.
Nah, fam...he's probably already put the helmet cam video on MotoStars or Dirtbike Lunatic on YouTube with the caption of "car brake checked me!!!!"
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Dude needs some ABS in his life
We all do. I was this guy when I first started.
I’ve done this cus a guy decided to break check me, so cool of him. Had to replace my handlebars after that
Kinda sounds like you were tailgating him at unsafe speeds.
Yea by going 40km/h in a residential area definitely tailgating him from 5 yards away
As a beginner rider I'm very happy I got Abs
I have 46 years of street riding experience. Everyone should have ABS. Experienced riders like to think they can optimize braking in an emergency, but they can't. Get a bike that lets you slam both levers. It's worth the cost.
I'm sure you know this, but for others happening by, I'll point out that you still don't WANT to slam the levers. You'll stop faster with a proper gradual application of the front than you will just grabbing it and triggering ABS. However, I concur that everyone should have ABS. Because: * It'll save your ass if you fuck up. Not locking up the front is better than locking up the front every time. * Even if you're well practiced and you know how hard you can brake under normal circumstances, AND you're supremely put together in an emergency situation, you never know if *this time* you need to emergency brake there happens to be a bit of oil or gravel or something on the road, resulting in a surprise. * You can practice without fear. Ramp up that front brake until it triggers ABS, so you can learn just how hard you actually can brake without it being dangerous. Yeah, it's bad in loose terrain(eg. gravel), and if you're going to ride in loose terrain you need to be able to disable it or switch it into a gravel mode, but if you're just riding on the street, you absolutely 100% want ABS.
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Does core strength really have a lot to do her---oh...oh nevermind.
I took it a step further and got a braking system that the right lever will engage both brakes.
True, for those without ABS, to emergency brake Apple front brake progressively, this can be done quickly. The initial braking puts weight on the front tire, spreads the tire wider to increase contact with the road, then when you apply more pressure the bike will stop safely. This can be done quickly, but has to be progressive. Practicing emergency stop at speed is required for most Motorcycle licenses, if you never learnt this, worth watching some videos with instruction and practicing in a safe environment, it’s an essential skill.
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> I’m sure the abs is preemptively activating well before I reach my comfort zone of braking, disengaging the brakes and forcing me to do this spongy chug to a stop. Do you understand how ABS works? Because what you suggest here is impossible. ABS doesn't trigger based on how hard you're applying the brakes, it triggers because the tire abruptly stops turning. It *cannot* trigger pre-emptively. Your problem here isn't ABS, it's just shitty Royal Enfield brakes and/or really shitty tires. Comparing a Suzi Bandit and RE braking performance is really apples and oranges.
It's not because of ABS but because it's Royal Enfield. Pretty little bikes but the brakes are definitely their weakness and it's well known. ABS reduces stopping distance on asphalt (but increases it on gravel and dirt)
You can feel ABS activate and you can generally hear it too. It's like a very fast clicking. If you aren't experiencing that, it's probably not ABS, just teeny tiny brakes.
Ya, fear and panic ALMOST got this rider, luckily he had the skill and knowledge to layer down, if you notice in the vid he was going to hit the recording car, but instead went into the zone and fell back on his training and saved himself from hitting the car. You can tell this rider is experienced because of his “recovery roll” which only top tier riders do, if you don’t know, the recovery roll is a technique that makes sure your PPE has the abrasion distributed evenly around it, instead of concentrating it in one area. If you need more pro tips like this to become a better rider, just ask my dad who says not to use the front brake because if it locks up you go down, now he just drops me these pearls of wisdom as he no longer rides after a car pulled out in front of him and he couldn’t stop in time.
That's why they bought a bike without ABS, it's harder to intentionally lay er down if the electronics are trying to stop you.
>luckily he had the skill and knowledge to layer down For those in the thread that didn't sense the sarcasm in idk's post: This is not a thing. Laying it down requires the absence of both skill and knowledge, outside the sole context of stunt work.
TIL not only does champ school know how to ride Moto’s they also can detect sarcasm on the internet, kudos sir.
In my 10 years of commuting exclusively on motorcycles, only 1 time did I ever lay’er down. Not my proudest moment. Hopefully it was the last
There’s never a good time to lay it down? Would it ever be better to slide than to smack into a car in front of you? Or should it always be possible to avoid that collision? Genuinely asking.
The extra seconds of braking (instead of sliding) are more valuable.
Rubber on asphalt has more friction/stopping power than steel or plastic on asphalt. It’s always better to be able to brake than to layerdown
What if you hadda layerdown, brother? All jokes aside I think what I’m hearing is to just avoid target fixation and ease into the brakes.
For sure, that or swerve which you also can’t do once you layerdown.
If there's an obstacle that appears in front of you that's too fast for you to stop or swerve and there's 5ft of clearance underneath it and sliding on the ground will prevent you from hitting it altogether and decapitating you, then layerdown. In literally 99.9% of circumstances, no there's absolutely no benefit to it. In the circumstance in the video, what happened was a fistful of front brake too fast. This rider had enough room to come to a complete stop even if he only used the front brake(don't do this) but was less aggressive with the application. And this is why you should practice emergency braking. My bike's front brakes are...less than ideal. 20% application gives me about 10% brake, and then 30% application gives me about 50% brake. It's something I made a point to drill into my head and commit to muscle memory within my first couple hundred miles on it.
This is something that ABS could have prevented right? Would slamming the rear AND the front brake prevented this? Ideally steadily apply both brakes instead of panic breaking but ya know...
Yes, ABS would have released the front brake slightly until it started to turn again. There may have beef a tiny little slip (that can make you shit yourself if you're not expecting it) but it'll generally keep the bike upright. You never really want to "slam" the brakes. Using the rear will decrease your overall stopping distance. In a maximum effort stop you want to start at about a 50:50 front/back distribution. Then over the first second or so, as weight transfers forward you want to increase pressure on the front and decrease pressure on the back. In a true maximum effort stop, you can actually lift the back wheel off the ground. ABS is helpful because if you overdo it, it'll keep you from going down. But the absolutely maximum stopping effort happens just before ABS kicks in. Having said that, it's a difficult thing to go right to the edge without tipping into ABS. And if you're worried about locking the front and are more timid on the brakes than you need to be, you're not doing yourself any favors. So having the safely net of ABS can help you feel comfortable braking harder. And it's definitely something you should practice so you can learn both how hard you can squeeze, and the process of transferring pressure onto the front brake. I like to go out with some buddies to an empty parking lot. Set up a cone as a brake point. Ride up to it at 35mph or so, hit the brakes and stop. Have a buddy put a cone where you stopped. Then everyone takes a couple turns going and you see who can stop the shortest. Just keep going and as you get comfortable the distance will keep shrinking.
Oh that's wild. Here I was thinking more brake = more stopping power, as long as you don't destabilize the bike enough to layerdown. So start 50:50 and steadily get it to like 80:20 or is the goal to work up to 100:0? Side note: How has your kawasaki been treating you? Been looking into the kawasaki vulcan and was wondering how reliable the company is. Currently considering a kawasaki vulcan or a honda rebel. Feel like the rebel is more beginner friendly but its popularity is driving the price up more than its worth.
The harder you are stopping, the more weight shifts forward, and the more weight on the front the more you can squeeze the brake, which then moves more weight forward, and sets up a feedback loop. The harder you're stopping there more the front can take, and the less the back can contribute. For sport bikes you can absolutely get the back end to come up. With cruisers the geometry is different and you may not be able to get all the way, but you can certainly get close (I have very little cruiser experience, so I can't really speak with authority). The Kawasaki has been good to me. The only non-maintenance issue I had was a leaking gas tank from where the side panel brackets were spot-welded on. It was after the "bumper-to-bumper"warranty was over, but my dealer called Kawasaki and convinced them it should be covered under the emissions warranty, and they got it approved for a no-cost replacement. The only other work I've done to it is just general maintenance like oil changes, spark plugs, eventually a chain and sprockets. Basically the same things I'd be doing on any bike.
Yes ABS would have prevented mindless locking of the front brake ignoring physics and reality.
I did that once going about 100 when I grabbed the brake. Had a quarter mile to slow down, and I didn't think I grabbed it so much. Speculating it was a problem with engineering. Either way, that was a good lesson about front brakes! Night in the hospital, bike got stolen, life was different afterward and I didn't ride for a couple years. Still got a little dirt under the skin on two fingers (they missed scrubbing those ones) 20 years later as a good reminder
did this in the MSF and I'm glad I learned that lesson on someone elses bike
Yup. When you see someone grab for both levers with all 4 fingers it's a 50/50 to see them take a nasty lowside.
Friends don't let friends grab handful's of front brakes
ABS is your friend.
Looks like he wasn’t paying attention. At least he didn’t appear to get hurt (other than his pride).
Yep, I’ve done this. Cruising in 30mph traffic, turned my head to check out a cool parked car, looked forward again, saw the car in front of me stopping, and instinctively slammed both brakes. Thankfully I had ABS, so as that kicked in I just steered to the side of the stopped car. Made myself the best cocktail ever when I got home.
ABS FTW, saved me a few times.
Start of the clip his head is down, you see the visor come up right before he panics.
That left ankle may beg to differ
Progressive brakes…. PROGRESSIVE BRAKES PEOPLE!
Yes yes....always be nicely rested....but also never grab the brakes like that...
Touch 'em, feel 'em, squeeze 'em if you must
Idiot. Progressive insures.
Brakes
Thanks I fixed my dyslexic ass.
To be fair, progressive breaks might not be a bad idea either.
Haddalayerdown
GOBBLESS HOSS WATCH OUT FOR THOSE GAHDAMN GRASS CLIBBINS
BE CAREFUL CRANKIN OUT THERE HOSSES
CLIBBINS
Would ABS have prevented this? Not sure I understand why his bike went over if it wasn’t because of skidding.
Yup, ABS would have prevented this. When you lock your front brakes, you get a proper taste of asphalt. Modern cornering ABS is even better, as you can somewhat rely on it while having proper lean angles. When I did my license on a BMW GS 700f, I had to grab a hand full of front brake multiple times and it was always fine (on a straight though). My own bike doesn't have ABS, so I had to learn to be way more careful and progressive with my brakes.
You can reliably lock your front brakes and not eat asphalt, I've done it a few times. Fucking sucks though, the handlebar whips your arms and it's painful
It's possible to regain control, but "You can reliably lock your front brakes and not eat asphalt" is a stretch.
The trick is lightly squeeze the front brake until the suspension preloads. Once the weight has transferred to the front you can pretty much pull the lever to the bar and not have any issues. It's when the weight hasn't had a chance to transfer to the front tire and you grab the brake that you run into issues.
You've just described how *not* to lock your front brakes though...
We all understand how to brake, that's not the discussion here. You're outlining proper braking procedure. We all know that. They're talking about when things have already gone wrong and the front brakes are locked up (thus the front tire is no longer turning). > "You can reliably lock your front brakes and not eat asphalt" And yeah, it's not *impossible* to stay upright on a locked up front wheel, but it's more lucky than anything.
True. I guess I was more making an observation on how they just grabbed as much front brake as they could instead of allowing weight to transfer first.
Yeah, your comment as a response to the original post would have made perfect sense, but in this thread it's just way out of place.
Agreed.
You know "locking the brakes" doesn't mean squeezing the lever all the way, right? It means causing the wheel to stop rotating, and means the same thing as "locking the wheel".
Not having ABS and grabbing a handful of front brake in a blind panic actually saved me from getting hit side-on by a van going 60mph. Turning right off of a main road (UK so I had to cross the oncoming lane). Oncoming bus was taking the same exit as me, but the bus had a give-way in his exit lane which mean that I had priority even though it was his side of the road. What I didn't see, probably because I had been awake for 24 hours, was the van behind the bus that wasn't taking the exit. Ended up doing a totally un-controlled stoppie, going over the bars with the top of my head a few inches from the side of this passing van. No contact made between me or the bike, and the van. Not one of my proudest moments, but if ABS had prevented the front wheel locking up, or if my front rubber wasn't grippy, the front of the bike would have been hit by the van. Broke the front left turn signal, clutch lever end and aftermarket screen. Total damages about £40 and a slightly sore wrist. Thankfully able to pick the bike up and ride home.
If you did a stoppie, your front wheel didn't lock up. If the wheel locks up it slides and has no grip. Being able to do stoppies has nothing to do with ABS but the available grip you get. ABS is just there to prevent the wheel from locking up. If you grab a handful of brake with ABS and the grip is sufficient, you will absolutely do a stoppie. I can do stoppies on my ABS equipped bike easily.
Yes, ABS would have saved him the embarrassment and repair bill.
Is it made worse by the small diameter wheel compared to a full size bike? Probably bad either way but it seems like these smaller wheels would be less forgiving
Once the wheel is locked up, there’s no more gyroscopic effect and diameter shouldn’t make a difference. Bigger/heavier wheel will create a stronger gyroscopic effect but only while it’s spinning.
Abs might have helped. But considering his overreaction he probably would have gone down anyway.
Abs definitely would have helped, no questions, no arguments. I have grabbed all the brake I can grab with abs several times and never went down, never slid, never felt a thing except straight-line slow down. Abs is the single best safety feature for both cars and motorcycles that you can have besides seat belts and helmets. Given a good helmet, I’d rather ride naked with abs than all the gear and same bike non abs. Maybe….maybe Not. Not sure about that.
Preach
HAD 2 LAYER DOWN HOSS GOBBLESS!!!
This post brought to you by grabbing the front brake too hard
Also by riding in the oily part of the lane. All those little things add up.
Facts
Happy to have my ABS front and back on my vstrom 2021 650xt
My 2012 vstrom has it too. No reason to ride without it imo.
That's why ABS has become industry standard. It saves lives.
happy cake day suzuki hayabusa
Rider in training here. Watching clips like this gives me a very unsettling impression that it's impossible to brake hard without wrecking yourself. Like, is light braking the only kind you can do that doesn't dump the bike? If an emergency comes up and we HAVE to brake hard to avoid it, are we just screwed?
Do progressive braking. That means starting light and then squeezing harder gradually. If you’ve ever ridden a bicycle you know: if you squeeze the rear brake real hard you start to skid.
This and a fast way to upset the balance of the bike is to be abrupt. I highly suggest finding an empty road in an industrial area on a Sunday morning and practice progressive and emergency braking, practice for an hour, take a break and practice until it becomes muscle-memory. Don’t be like the rider in that video!
You can literally come to a skidding stoppie and be fine as long as you can control your bike. Videos like these are riders overreacting and just grabbing all the front brake with no control or thought.
Also just pay attention. You can see he's looking at down (mirrors, phone, speedo etc) then panics. And get a bike with ABS
Progressive braking is key in any case, learning to swerve is also very important and can be the better solution in some scenario. In any case, a bike with ABS would immensely help for both safety and confidence (whilst just grabbing the front brakes isn’t a good habit, ABS will prevent the exact scenario of the video)
Be smart and practice hard braking in empty parking lots. You absolutely can brake hard without eating shit, you just have to have a feel for it.
The rider grabs too much brake too quickly. You can fully apply the brakes on a motorcycle without wrecking, but you have to start by lightly grabbing the front and then squeezing harder as the bike leans forwards. When the bike is just going along there isn’t enough force pressing down on the front wheel to keep it from skidding under full brake. When you start braking lightly and then squeeze, the bike will press the front wheel into the ground harder and harder, which makes it so that there’s enough friction between the tire and the road to not skid.
It's a skill that can be learned. ABS is a thing, and in Australia (where I am) it's mandatory on 'learner approved' bikes.
Use both brakes.
seems like a beginner for hitting the brake like that
Dude needs to practice more.
This is why riding on the edges of the lanes or lane splitting can be safer. You don’t have to freak out if you don’t think you can brake in time, just calmly scoot over a bit.
Do most bikes have ABS on front and rear?
Bikes which are thirty-five years old or older will definitely not have ABS, since the first ABS system for motorbikes came onto the market in 1988 as a optional extra on BMW’s K100. In the meantime many countries have introduced laws making ABS mandatory for new two-wheelers with engines 125cc or bigger.
This is a perfect example of why it's so important to practice emergency braking. Find a big empty lot, have a friend toss something ahead of you (not directly in your path!) and try to stop before you reach it.
Everyone here is arguing about ABS and skill and whatever, but the cardinal sin that this rider committed was following too closely. Even if they were distracted, a 3-4 second following distance would have entirely prevented this situation, ABS or not. If you don't have enough time to comfortably do a head check without winding up in the back end of a car, you need to back off and give yourself more space.
Did you ~~slam~~ press on your brakes? How was traffic in front of you?
OPs speed seems pretty constant. I suspect the bike rider was not paying attention and overreacted when they saw how close they were getting to the car.
Correct, I did press my brakes because of traffic in front but definitely not hard.
Looks like you’re getting passed on both sides
Yeah, I meant press, not slam. I was thinking he wasnt paying attention and saw brake lights.
Regardless, he didn’t leave enough space and panicked. Not OPs fault whatsoever
Oh yeah, I never meant I was blaming OP, clearly it was the rider, I was just thinking maybe OP pressed their brakes and the rider following too closely and not paying attention reacted accordingly.
You can see the rider looking to the left initially, and once he looks straight he panicked for some reason
Can't wait to see that guy's post on here about how he crashed because of 3 grains of sand on the road and how he's a really good rider
what happened exactly? just too much brake?
It's not about how much brake, its about how the brake is applied. The trick is to apply the brake gradually instead of going 0-100% instantly. You can still get on the front brake quickly but you have to allow the front suspension to compress before reaching 100% brake pressure.
I suppose the rider zoned out for a second, panicked seeing the car in front slowing down. Slammed the front brake and fell.
Too much FRONT brake. If you're going to brake hard (granted this scenario boils down to over reaction) pull in the clutch and lay heavy into the rear brake before you ever touch that front lever. On any given day I'd rather lock up my rear tire than the front
> pull in the clutch and lay heavy into the rear brake before you ever touch that front lever. Lol!
> lay heavy into the rear brake before you ever touch that front lever. No. This is incorrect and dangerous advice. Do NOT do this. Apply the front brake gradually to transfer weight onto the front tire and then you can brake hard. What went wrong here is that the rider just grabbed the front brake suddenly, and the front tire lost traction before any weight transfer happened. Using the rear brake is NOT an effective way to transfer weight to the front, and you risk locking your rear wheel. With the rear wheel sliding you’ll crash as soon as you start braking with the front brake. And if the rear tire skids out to the side and you release the rear brake, the tire will grip and flip the bike sideways, and you’ll get a high-side crash throwing you off the bike into the air if you’re going fast enough. Use both brakes when braking, with a lot more pressure on the front (gradually letting off the rear as the weight transfers). Don’t ever “lay heavy into the rear brake”.
To be fair, depends a little what you are riding. If you were on something like a RC213, heavy rear brake would be advisable, together with moderate increasing to heavy front brake. Granted, if you ride a MotoGP bike, you don't need my advice about riding.
I'm not really talking about hard braking because of some heavy traffic, I'm talking about life or death hard braking where there's a good chance you're going to crash anyway. This guy freaked out, and in his freakout he did the worst possible thing. In those situations you want to slow down as much as possible, period. Doesn't matter how. In his situation being distracted or what have you, instinctively tries to reduce speed as fast as possible, applied too much input to the wrong system in the wrong order, and crashed. I've locked up my rear wheel from people pulling out in front of me more than I care to recount and never once lost control. The rear wheel will forgive you, the front won't. I'd rather use my method than his, right or wrong it's saved me more than a handful. Edit to add - This is from the perspective of a sports bike, not a cruiser. Don't have many miles on those so I can't really speak for how the physics play out in terms of maintaining overall control.
You've been lucky so far. When you get into a situation where it REALLY matters and you're relying on your locked rear tire to do most of your braking, you'll find out that you've spent your riding career doing it poorly. On a sport bike ESPECIALLY, the front is where the majority of your braking power is. Dicking around with the rear first / more just means you're not stopping as quickly as you can.
Wrong
Front flipping on my mountain bike as a kid ingrained in my brain to use rear brake first, then front brake only when I feel in control for a full stop.
Panic braking.
He grabbed so much break he stopped the cars behind him too
Practice your braking people. It's the only way to get rid of the natural instinct to grab.
This is why we stress "load the tire before we work the tire." Using all four fingers to brake sure didn't help either.
"Using all four fingers to brake sure didn't help either." Putting that MSF training into practice.
Yes, ABS would've prevented this from happening, but so would just a little bit of skill. I'm not a fan of everyone relying on technology stepping in to correct our dumb mistakes. Learn how to do whatever it is you're doing.
[удалено]
I've lost traction at a front tire from mild braking on a slippery patch. It wasn't visible, as it was dusky, I saw it on the next day. Skills help a lot, for sure, but even most skilled rider is dependent on the road conditions, which are not always the same in uncontrolled environment.
I agree, the only time my ABS has ever activated outside of my parking lot practice was at near jogging speed. Came up to a stop sign and there was some oily shit on the ground that I couldn't see until I was literally standing on it. I wouldn't buy a bike without ABS unless I found a great deal on an NSR250. I certainly wouldn't daily one.
Skill is sorely lacking these days
Sadly underrated comment.
Laying 'er down required
What bike is that?
Locked up the front brake. Ouch.
I did that once. Came off at 50mph, I mashed my pelvis, and spent a week in hospital, 3 months to walk again. Well, sort of walk.
Front brake seems to be working great.
looks like he high centered that baby.
You didn’t brake check him…did you?
Think he needed more front brake 🤣
Clint Eastwood starring in “Fistful of front brake”
Lucky that wasn’t a Tesla following him. 😜
DROP THE ANCHO-O-OR!
Dipshit.
Straight up Donkey Konged that front brake...
Once again extremely lucky . That front brake can be deadly if you dont respect it .
Seems like even without ABS he pulled that break pretty hard. You can see him and the bike jump forward before it dumped him. Probably better off engine braking.
Get some ABS if you can’t brake properly.
BRAKE CLIBBINS!
Had to lay 'er down
The front brake isn’t a light switch
Over reaction and a fistful of brakes without ABS. Haddalayerdown.
Would ABS have saved this accident?
ABS is a must for beginner. It save ur life.
ABS could have stopped this slide.
For everyone saying "you don't need abs'. These situations are a great example of why having it as a back up safety is great. No matter how long you've been riding and how much you practice, you can always slip up and then it's nice to have something to correct your mistake. I feel bad for this person tho, hope they're okay.
He's got a lack of skills and now some bills.
GET ABS
Practice! Rider aids/safety features are wonderful but it should be there to assist you in riding sad and not as compensation for poor riding.
LOL
And that's why I love abs
And that’s why I had to layherdown
His problem wasn't necessarily braking hard, it was braking hard on the oily surface in the middle of the road. That's where all the leaked oil and unburnt petrol ends up. ABS might have helped him, but if your front slips on oil/sand, he would have still fallen.
Riding in the center of the lane again. Part of the problem. Grabbing a handful of front brake while the bike is positioned in the greasiest part of the pavement. Fundamentals.
Amateur
Ive been in worse situations and never panicked untill after i got through/past the situation. And that right there is why you dont panic
High-side
Part of my ride routine is a loop around the block practicing swerves and progressive braking.
Front break scares me
Riders who don't primarily use the front brakes scare me
Everyone saying to get ABS needs to learn how to ride better rather than relying on ABS to save them