Quote:
Originally Posted by akima
.........Thanks!
............You said in point 1 "eyes looking far away"... and you bolded it. That's something I haven't thought about doing. What's the reasoning? I'm guessing to avoid target fixation... so I don't hyper focus on the thing I am trying to avoid?
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You are welcome, Akima
There is a natural tendency to look close in front of the wheel during parking lot practices.
However, that is not good for creating the habit of looking for a escape path and much less for keeping the balance when the bike becomes unstable under really hard braking.
Keeping your eyes on the horizon and level gives your internal ears a solid point of reference for pitch, for yaw and for lateral roll of the machine under you.
I have collected for you and other practitioners some very useful articles and some previous threads about emergency braking:
Braking Tips
Some old but good studies on braking
Brake progressively
Keep your controls covered while riding on the street
Stopping distance calculator
During an emergency situation, will you steer in the right direction?
Bike Crash Evasion and Mitigation
Keeping a log book where the stopping distances are recorded will show the real progress.
Once the contact patch is consistently pushed to the limit (some chattering may happens), the practice for quick release following a lock-up and brief skid of the front tire can follow.
And that is just basic braking on a straight line and dry pavement.
After some degree of proficiency is achieved, more real world braking alternatives should be practiced: while turning, on wet surface, on sand, quick acceleration before coming to a full stop, braking followed by swerving, etc.
The skill is not needed for track-days and racing, but
for street riding, ........nobody should be doing that before at least mastering emergency braking.
You saved the day simply because you had put some effort on improving your braking skill above MSF's basic training..........that is what my experience tells me.