Emergency braking practice report

Today I had the nice combination of being off work thanks to a furlough and my wife/kids being out of town, so I took the opportunity to spend some quality time on practicing emergency braking. There's a huge parking lot at an old naval base in Alameda, CA, where the MSF classes are taught on the weekends.

I spent about an hour doing it, probably went through the exercise 50 times so, from speeds of 35 mph to 40 mph, sometimes up to 45 mph, in second gear. Some things I noticed from doing it:
* It took about 40 ft from apply brake to stopping from about 40mph. I have misplaced my Proficient Motorcycling book, which I know has target stopping distances. Not sure it that is good or not. I should have brought some markers that I could have laid out to give me targets to try to stop at.
* Almost impossible to avoid skidding the rear wheel. I did it nearly every time, even when touching it only very lightly.
* A few times I tried not using the rear brake, but it messed up my cadence. I'm in the habit of using it, so actively not using it caused me to mess up on using the front brake.
* Six or eight times I skidded the front wheel. That is darn scary. I never felt like going down was imminent, and I was able to release the brake, get control and stop again. But it's very easy to do it - even when progressively applying pressure. Would be hard to avoid doing it in a panic situation. Hopefully this exercise will form the basis for whatever instinct takes over when the panic situation arises. And it adds anothe 50% to the stopping distance.
* After a while, I was getting pretty comfortable about when I could really start crunching on the front brake. I was usually squeezing it with full force by the time I had stopped. From constant reprimanding at my ERC class for only using 2 fingers on the brake, I've now converted my habit to four fingers. Given the force I used to stop at the end, I doubt I would have been able to apply it with only two fingers.
* A couple of times the back wheel came up a couple of inches when I stopped. That's probably an indication of achieving maximum braking. It was pretty rare though.
* Due to regularly downshifting to match road and engine speed, I found I was getting into first gear without thinking about before I was stopped (although ended up in neutral a number of times). This was something I hadn't really mastered when I took the ERC a few months ago. Seemed my brain was so consumed with thinking about braking that I would forget to downshift.

It was a good experience, weather was nice, and a fun time. I feel more confident in stopping in an emergency, and have a better sense of what distance it will take. I'll try to do this practice a bit more often.

Thanks for the analysis! It's a reminder how valuable an hour in a parking lot can be.

The other day I was zipping along too quickly and nearly ran a redlight. I could have gunned it, but I chose to stop, and ended up bout 15 feet past the white line...chattering up the rear tire pretty well. I need to do what you did Thanks for the informative post and encouraging me to find a nice empty lot.

:thumbup:

i think if your back wheel comes up even higher it would indicate better braking. if you really lean into the front wheel and get more weight on it im sure you could apply more break and shorten your braking distances.

if your back wheel only leaves the ground in the tiny minority of cases i think you could do better.

i dont mean that negatively at all. just my 2 cents.

i have tried similar practice sessions and it is really quite intimidating to get heavy on the front brake at speeds over 60kph. stopping so hard your back tire lifts up at all takes balls. i have failed to do it most of the times i go out and practice too. im too worried about dumping the bike and breaking something (on the bike).

It's strange I have read quit a few posts with people saying it's so easy to lock the front, but I have never had it happen. I commute all winter in some quite nasty contitions and in crappy traffic that requires frequent hard braking, yet the front has never locked, the rear has several times. What tires do you use? I use Diablo Stradas, I never felt comfortable with the stock tires. I do lean forward a lot to put pressure on the front and only use 2 fingers (a habit I've always had not just on the FZ).

lonesoldier84 said:

...if you really lean into the front wheel and get more weight on it im sure you could apply more break and shorten your braking distances.
....
i have tried similar practice sessions and it is really quite intimidating to get heavy on the front brake at speeds over 60kph. stopping so hard your back tire lifts up at all takes balls. i have failed to do it most of the times i go out and practice too. im too worried about dumping the bike and breaking something (on the bike).

Click to expand...

Yes, it does seem like leaning forward when hard braking would move the center of gravity more to the front wheel a bit. I've not heard of that being a recommended emergency braking technique, though. I doubt I'd have the precense of mind to implement that maneuver in the brief period available in an emergency. Sounds more like a stoppie technique when you're planning ahead on a fast stop.

I did find the practice a bit scary. While accelerating to my stop line, I always wondered if I was going to go down on this run. When I finished for the day, I had a sense of relief that me and my bike survived with no damage.

bluenova said:

It's strange I have read quit a few posts with people saying it's so easy to lock the front, but I have never had it happen. I commute all winter in some quite nasty contitions and in crappy traffic that requires frequent hard braking, yet the front has never locked, the rear has several times. What tires do you use? I use Diablo Stradas, I never felt comfortable with the stock tires. I do lean forward a lot to put pressure on the front and only use 2 fingers (a habit I've always had not just on the FZ).

Click to expand...

I wonder if you aren't able to generate enough force with two fingers to lock the front brake. Or maybe your tires are so superior to the stockers I have. I've never locked the front wheel in day-to-day riding, because I've not had to do an emergency stop yet. The only times I've done it is in practice. It's not so easy that it would happen without really crunching on the lever.

bluenova said:

It's strange I have read quit a few posts with people saying it's so easy to lock the front, but I have never had it happen. I commute all winter in some quite nasty contitions and in crappy traffic that requires frequent hard braking, yet the front has never locked, the rear has several times. What tires do you use? I use Diablo Stradas, I never felt comfortable with the stock tires. I do lean forward a lot to put pressure on the front and only use 2 fingers (a habit I've always had not just on the FZ).

Click to expand...

You really shouldn't use 2 fingers. The reason you've never locked it up is probably because you can't generate enough pressure with just two fingers. IMO you should use 4, then you have the ability to generate more than enough pressure to lock the tire up, then you're using less effort than what is your own maximum to actually stop without locking it up, which will allow you to modulate the brake much more easily.

I don't know if that makes sense to anyone but myself. If you're using 2 finger and are squeezing that thing as hard as you can and it still doesn't lock up, then you don't have the ability to modulate the brake with those two fingers as easily as if you were using 4, and only using half your strength to acheive maximum braking.

I don't know if that cleared it up or not.

By the way, I rode dirtbikes for a long time and used to only use 2 fingers. Now I only use 4.

This is more of a question than a comment. I've done a lot of bike racing (mountain and road bike), and found that shifting my weight back on the bike helps a lot under heavy braking...it puts more downforce on the back, and prevents the momentum from pushing over and past the front wheel. Certainly the center of gravity is much lower on the motorbike but I wonder if the same technique has any value here.

My problem now is that I have this many-years driven habit of grabbing a handful of both levers to brake hard, and have no idea how to use the rear brake properly...

It is far too easy to lock the front wheel with stock tires. If your tire isn't nice and warm, it's going to take a lot of finesse to lift the rear wheel.

Also, forget about that rear brake!!! If you don't train yourself to stop using it, when you really do have to stop hard on the street and the bike is leaned over a little bit, the wheel is going to lock and the back end is going to come around on you. Not good.

Good post!
Last comment on not using the rear brake I disagree with, getting a good feel for the rear brake is often overlooked, it is on there for a reason, and can be very useful in some situations, it still has beneficial stopping power even under SOME emergency braking conditions. Agreed that when the contact patch is broken it's useless, but on the initial application it helps.

I can lock up the front end with two fingers in panic stop, don't like the feeling at all, but it can be done.

MRGM said:

Also, forget about that rear brake!!! If you don't train yourself to stop using it, when you really do have to stop hard on the street and the bike is leaned over a little bit, the wheel is going to lock and the back end is going to come around on you. Not good.

Click to expand...

oldfast007 said:

Good post!
Last comment on not using the rear brake I disagree with, getting a good feel for the rear brake is often overlooked, it is on there for a reason, and can be very useful in some situations, it still has beneficial stopping power even under SOME emergency braking conditions. Agreed that when the contact patch is broken it's useless, but on the initial application it helps.

Click to expand...

Previously, I had been out of the habit of using the rear, then through many postings on the topic, I started getting back in the habit, thinking that I should be in the habit so that I would be trained to use it in an emergency. But after actually trying to use it in an emergeny stop practice, I now think it may do more harm than good. If I can't figure out how to use it without skidding it in 50 attempts where that's what I'm concentrating on, there is NFW I'll ever get it right in a real emergency. I don't think it's helping me slow, it brings on the potential of a highside if it were to start sliding out to the side, or a lowside if the bike was at an angle as MRGM mentioned, and the sound of it skidding is distracting when I should be focusing on what the front wheel is doing. I may start using my rear only for the specific cases I want to use it in (scrub some speed in a corner, light up the tail lights without slowing much), and not make it part of my everyday braking habit. I know it can help if used properly, but I somewhat doubt I'm anywhere near attaining that level of skill.

MRGM said:

forget about that rear brake!!! If you don't train yourself to stop using it, when you really do have to stop hard on the street and the bike is leaned over a little bit, the wheel is going to lock and the back end is going to come around on you. Not good.

Click to expand...

I don't know about that. I just dumped it on Friday because a car surprised me (my fault, not theirs) in my neighborhood. I know I grabbed a handful of front brake, instantly locking up my front and dumping me into a right-side slide. I was just starting my turn and probably reacted to turn away from the car too. It's the exact same problem I had in an off-road bicycle race last September - too much front brake on a RH turn and down I went.

I'm a big front brake user on the bike and moto - it's definitely the power brake. I'm going to have to re-learn the rear.

Moving your weight forward to get it over the front tire contact patch? That's crazy! That's a formula for going over the bars. Keeping your weight back will enable more force to go into the front tire.

fhfr436 said:

I know I grabbed a handful of front brake, instantly locking up my front

Click to expand...

On any bike, instantly applying full braking will lock the wheel. That's the WRONG way to do it. You have to take a second or so to reach full power so that the weight can transfer to the front and give the tire grip.

I know I can never practice enough on braking. It's the biggest place I lack in my riding.

Thank you guys for the vigilant reminders and experiences that will probably save limb and life for many of us someday.
Keep up the great work.

Cliff

I crunched the number and a 40 ft stop from 40 mph corresponds to a 1.13 g stop taking about 1.487 sec. That is pretty good. Most cars can do about a little less than 1 g (where a g is 32 ft/sec/sec). So you are outstopping most cars (a very good thing).

I did a 1.3 g stop from 30 mph here:http://http://www.600riders.com/forum/new-riders-q/908-how-fast-can-you-stop.html

this reminds me that I need to get out and practice again

I notice when reading the thread, that there are quite a few instances of lock ups. Are you allowed to lock up the tires on your test, when carrying out your emergency stop. As in the UK if you lock up your wheels it's a failure.

But if I needed to stop in an emergency and the wheels locked up, as long as I stopped that's the main thing.

Cheers

Get ABS,- and just apply 100% pressure on both brakes,- no skidding, and it still stops shorter than any one of my non-ABS fellow riders have been able to.