[Learned You]

Yellow - All good advice. I knew I should have gone through as soon as I hit the brakes but it was a little late and I would have hit the gas again but I had the turn lane to get out of the way. I have practiced quick stops a good deal but it sounds like I need to do it a little more.

[Black_peter]

Once you get the quick stop down you'll probably never lock either wheel by accident again - no matter what the situation.

Not totally true..

Remember that only half of the braking is you and your bike..
The other half is the road surface.
I was panic braking once and the road changed to broken tar..
As soon as I hit that surface the front tire locked..

After practicing fast braking in a lot you may never
lock up the tires on even good pavement.. But you will
lock them by accident again!

[iwannadie]

i was always told if the rear locks up dont let go unless you can let off the brake Very quickly after lockup. if the rear slides to the side even an inch or to it should snap back when you let off the brake. it might not be enough to throw you off but might be enough to scare you into doing something else bad.

that said, ive locked my back tire up a few times. once i was close to being stopped so i stayed on the brake. the back tire did 'dance' around under me. was scarey but i held onto it and stopped no problem. the other times i got off the brake quick enough, it was more of a 'chirp' than lock up.

[Yellow2002Kat]

Once you get the quick stop down you'll probably never lock either wheel by accident again - no matter what the situation.

Not totally true..

I know, that's why I said Probably. Now stop bustin' my chops, will ya . It's not my fault that you crazy Texans don't take better care of your roads

[JJ0712]

That question was on my permit test! If you lock the rear wheel what do you do? So you do actually use something they say in those books. And yes the answer was keep it locked and ride it out and stay as straight as possible.

[TheKlic]

I grew up riding dirt, I ALWAYS locked the rear
so I lock it occasionally just to screw around on the Kat

almost highsiding saved my life once
I was riding my Nighthawk 250 at the time, 2 drum brakes, didn't stop too good. Anyway, a truck pulled out in front of me and stopped, I locked the rear and started to slide sideways. I almost layed it down, then let off the rear break and it tossed me into the shoulder avoiding the truck by mere inches. If I'd tried to stop normally, I'd be dead. 50mph into the rear end of a Chevy 1500... ugly buisness
I made it through all that without ever going down, only had a REALLY sore leg to show for it

[SKNL2]

In real world street motorcycling, it is never appropriate to apply the rear brake aggressively. This never is multiplied infinitely when cornering. You have but two choices when cornering and you lock the rear, a high-side or a low-side. Either way, it's a crash. Unless you are a miracle rider, saving a high-side once your rear wheel has come past the irrecoverable angle is all but impossible. A low-side is what happens when you "ride it out." Lesser of two evils, yes, but certainly not advisable to novice to intermediate riders. Your spinning rear wheel is a source of stability via its gyroscopic effect. When it stops, you have eliminated a large percentage of your stability.

The answer is: Never, ever lock your rear brake. Will it happen? Sure. Should it happen? NO!! If you ride with the mindset that it's OK to lock up the rear, you will lock up the rear. This is a recipe for disaster.

Your front brake has enough stopping power to raise the rear tire off the ground. If you aren't doing a stoppie, you aren't using all of your available front brake and should lay off the rear (straight line panic stop only!!) If you are braking hard enough in a corner to lock up the rear, you screwed up before you entered the corner and will probably pay the price. Use the rear to scrub speed ONLY!

[Black_peter]

Once you get the quick stop down you'll probably never lock either wheel by accident again - no matter what the situation.

Not totally true..

I know, that's why I said Probably. Now stop bustin' my chops, will ya . It's not my fault that you crazy Texans don't take better care of your roads

My bad I didn't see the Probably...
No cookie for me

Actually Texas has great roads.. That was in New England...

[SKNL2]

I know it's an old thread but I came across a prime example of why it is never a good idea to use your rear brake aggressively on the street and it bears repeating. At the end of this video, the rider underbrakes the front and overbrakes the rear after slipping the rear tire a bit causing a loss of control and the subsequent crash.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5598263209431912025&q=crash

[The CyberPoet]

I know it's an old thread but I came across a prime example of why it is never a good idea to use your rear brake aggressively on the street and it bears repeating. At the end of this video, the rider underbrakes the front and overbrakes the rear after slipping the rear tire a bit causing a loss of control and the subsequent crash.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...912025&q=crash

Examining that video closely, I'm not really sure if this rider from Munchen (Munich in English) was initially a case of overly aggressive rear brake use. If you watch closely, you'll see his front shock compress overly heavily with a bad twist angle to the handlebars, and then bounce back (upwards), leaving a black mark coming off his front tire and inducing the start of the headshake we see. It looks like he locks the rear when the front starts to skid sideways. I suspect he was on his front brakes and hit a sizeable chunk of rock (off the mountain, liters the road in that area -- yes, I've ridden most of Southern Germany & the Alps) which spit out sideways and upset the front end of the suspension... which leads to the headshake that so obvious... Hmmm...

Cheers,
=-= The CyberPoet

[SKNL2]

I don't see anything in the road in front of him just before the rear end gets loose. He corrects in the front (actually the bike corrects for him as there was no real input from the rider). It looks possible from the movement of his left foot at the shift lever that he shifted up and accelerated too hard causing the rear wheel to break traction.
If he did hit debris, big or small, he underbraked the front once it was evident he was hitting the wall. Also, he put his foot down, looking as if he were trying to Flintstone stop the bike -- almost certainly a sign of panic and inexperience.

In ANY event, this is an example of how a motorcycle will behave when you aggressively use your rear brake in a corner.

[DooD]

If you want to have an adventure, try locking up the rear brake in the middle of a corner (rain always helps), and get 'er a little sideways....while the bike is coming around a bit, give it some gas and then dump the clutch and come off the brake...makes for an interesting corner exit, if you can keep 'er upright! :P

I did it once with squidly luck & success, and then highsided on my second attempt..... LOL....






I do not recommend trying this. If you do, you'll probly hurt yourself and wreck your bike.