Newbie breaking reccomendations!

I've been riding motorcycles about 9 years, mostly street, some mountain riding. About 40,000 miles total so far. Two years ago I was in an accident where I applied the front brakes too quickly in street traffic, ~ 20 MPH. Nothing too serious, however several ribs broken and a sprained shoulder. After that incident I've done some experimenting with safer stopping techniques. I would seriously recommend using the "rear brakes" as "1st choice" with speeds over 10 MPH. Using both rear and front over 20 MPH can cause the bike to wobble, particularly sport bikes. With normal street riding, front brakes should be used gently and only at speeds less than 10 MPH, or to maintain a full stop.

Considering at least 70% of stopping power comes from the front brake of most modern bikes I would call your post both very dangerous and ill informed.

Please read up on safe braking techniques, this is a good place to start;
Motorcycle Safety Site

I whole heatedly disagree with this, majority of your stopping power comes from the front. A mix of front and rear should be used, with the primary braking coming from the fronts. Rears will lock up quite quickly and cause a skid or high-side if you release it quickly enough by accident

How did your crash occur? did the front end slip out? or did you do a stoppie and go over the front? There's a possibility you have bad steering head bearings, or a issue with the suspension setup if you have wobbling using both brakes above 20 mph. I used to regularly practice my brake control going heavy only on the fronts from 130 mph down to 0 and never had shuddering or wobbling.

Yeah....no....just, no. My fronts are my primary braking technique, as is recommended by everything read and everything I've experienced.
Maybe you pulled too hard on your fronts and flipped over. Just don't pull so hard!
The rear will lock up way too easily with the lack of weight back there during a braking event (mass shifts forward, almost all of it on the front wheel during braking).

Assuming you didn't write "breaking" instead of "braking" intentionally, this is deeply bad advice. The FZ6 has extremely good front brakes and is weight-biased to the front anyway. 90%+ of the stopping power is on the front on this bike. Giving up on any chance of effective braking is NOT a good substitute for practice and maintenance.

To the OP, please consider taking a motorcycle safety class, beginners or advanced. Braking is a topic that can save your life, unfortunately for the majority of riders, they fail to do it correctly. It takes routine practice which in turns to correct muscle memory. But before you can apply the proper techniques you must understand how the braking process works in terms of basic science

Maybe OP was riding atop a grease slick???
Low speeds basic stop I'll use either. During panic stops you'll have huge weight transfer which renders the rear brake potentially ineffective depending on conditions.

Go practice until muscle memory wins no matter what happens. Then practice in the corners and other less favorable conditions.

For the purpose of staying sharp I practice braking by doing this.
Pick something that will come up like a mail box with a flag up. As soon as you see a mail box with a flag up and its safe to brake (not get ran over) brake at maximum effort for the conditions.

Unlike just braking at a random time, this method keeps you looking and riding. You could use a rock in the road. Road kill, a pot hole.... use your imagination and practice!

Agreed with all the RESPONSES.

Almost all of my stops are using both front and rears, More so with the fronts.

As noted, muscle memory response... And "covering" both the brake petal and lever will also save
valuable stopping feet...

About the only time you would use MOST pressure on the rear is if you hit a slick of sand/dirt in the road,
go off road by accident, etc. That helps keep the ft end up and the rear can lock completely if you practice.

As posted above, PLEASE take some advanced courses. It will literally extend your life span....

Pardon my french, but what in the flying **** are you talking about?!

Honestly I hope this thread gets deleted so a newbie doesn't find it and follow it.

+10000 on using both brakes. I teach MSF Basic Rider Course where we stress to always use both brakes. It is crucial to develop the skill and muscle memory to initiate panic stops without much time to think. And we all know the rear is of limited use at speed, so we need to learn to approach the thresholds of front and rear independently. To the OP, ditto on training. The front brake do most of the braking (I guess that why the front wheel has 2 disks), they just can't be grabbed. They need to be squeeeezed.


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visions said:

Pardon my french, but what in the flying **** are you talking about?!

Honestly I hope this thread gets deleted so a newbie doesn't find it and follow it.

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Ok so I just wanted to throw my 3 weeks of riding experience into the pot. I just took the class first motorcycle I ever rode was 4 weeks ago. The class teaches to use BOTH brakes at all times no matter what the stop from normal braking to emergency.

Topher said:

Ok so I just wanted to throw my 3 weeks of riding experience into the pot. I just took the class first motorcycle I ever rode was 4 weeks ago. The class teaches to use BOTH brakes at all times no matter what the stop from normal braking to emergency.

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That's a good rule to learn to start, but it is modulated by the bike you're riding and by experience. My experience was that as I got better at using the brakes, the rear became useless until I got much much better, and then the rear came into play again.

In an emergency stop, the front brakes (for me and my riding position on an FZ6 with R6 forks and brakes), the rear does less than 5% of any braking and the potential liability of having the rear slide is almost not worth it. Getting good at progressively squeezing the front brake without locking up will yield huge dividends in stopping power, adding in the rear will yield another much smaller gain. The rear brake is great for a lot of things, but stopping fast is definitely not one of them. If you're maximizing the use of the front brakes, your rear will probably be in the air anyway.