For emergency stops on nice, dry road, I used to use
only my front brake. I stopped doing that after reading a long thread about braking (all threads about braking seem to be long threads about braking!). I now use the technique that @
ally99 uses (I think it was her):
Initially I get on both the front and rear brake. I progressively add more and more front brake. When the front suspension gets compressed enough and the front contact patch gets big enough that I can put very heavy braking on, I start to completely take off the rear brake. The initial, gentle, simultaneous application of both front and rear means I don't have to split my concentration between the 2 independent brakes (they both go on together - it's one action). After that I remain safely, gentle on the rear and almost all of my concentration is on progressively adding braking force on the front. Even when I get to the point of braking where I'm getting off the rear brake, I'm only doing that because of what I'm feeling from the front braking; so again - I'm not splitting my focus.
I really like this technique as it seems to offer the best of both schools of thought (
just front Vs.
front and rear). I get that initial benefit of using the rear brake. I get to keep almost all of my concentration on what I'm doing with the front brake (the really important one). As the braking gets really hard up front I have little to no risk of the rear stepping out as I'm off the rear brake by that point.
^ None of the above applies to braking on wet/low-grip surfaces or non-emergency stops. I do completely different stuff for almost all other braking situations.