Quote:
Originally Posted by Misti
Great question! I too ride downhill mountain bike and I think the skills are somewhat transferrable. Any time you can practice sliding the rear (whether on a mountain bike or a dirt bike) and being comfortable with a bike moving around underneath you, it will help you react with less overall panic then if you had never felt a slide before.
Locking up the front on your motorcycle will feel similar to locking the front on a mt bike but because the mt bike is lighter and you are on dirt instead of pavement it will normally lock a lot easier than a streetibke. I've written an article on front end feel that may help explain front tire traction feel a little bit more.... you can read it here:
You could work on training yourself to release the brakes slightly (instead of releasing completely) when you feel either begin to lock on your mountain bike and you should also practice emergency braking on your Ninja in a safe and calculated manner.
I hope that answered your question! |
You answered my question. Thanks for the reply: much appreciated! Late reply from me, because I wanted to read your article first.
I'm definitely going to practise lightly releasing my front brake after a MTB front wheel lock up. I actually already play around with front wheel locks up sometimes for fun... see how long I can slide the front before recovering (or hitting the dirt
). I have a different mentality on my MTB than my motorcycle. I pretty much act like a kid on my MTB - just have fun and play about. On my ninja, on the street, I switch to I-could-die-if-I-mess-up mode. Both bikes are amazing fun!
So, your article states that there
can be an element of feel to a front tyre that is being over-worked. You also state that sometimes there is no feel: your grip just goes, like on ice
I get the impression from what you've said, that loosing grip on the front can be more easily controlled and recovered from when braking while the bike is stood up. You made it sound like recovering from loosing front-end grip while leaned over is a far more hit-and-miss affair and that a rider would be best off learning how to corner skillfully so they don't over-work the front, than spend time learning how to recover from loss of traction from corning less-skillfully.