cv_rider
Junior Member
- Joined
- Apr 21, 2008
- Messages
- 819
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- Location
- Danville, CA Bay Area
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.
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.