well it happened feel hella dumb...

[rusninja]

I low sided in a straight line trying to stop quick and because light was turning red and when i hit the reflective line. learned if your going to gun it gun it if your going to brake dont take to long to think i hit gas first then spazzed out and started braking. Sides scratched shift lever bent back fairing cracked maybe bent bar. :/

[02337]

Learned this early on, except I hit the back brake hard starting to fishtail thnkfully I didn't go down.... Learned my lesson about back brakes

[Motofool]

Sorry to read that, Ruslan

It seems that you didn't get hurt, did you?

Don't feel too bad, those things must happen sooner or later.

[Jono]

Lets see some pics!!!

[lgk]

glad your ok, and the crash was low speed.

looks like its time for some wood craft rearsets.

[rusninja]

Im not to bad bruises, lumps and little peeled skin i guess from friction from my clothing.

I didnt take pictures of my bike the dealer has it. :[ They are straightening my forks in the triple clamp and trying to straighten my shifter. Hopefully my bike will be rideable again though soon. :]

[Jiggles]

I'll take the engine and throttle body

[Trailerboy531]

You took it to a dealer? Have you learned nothing on this site?

[LiquidShell]

It's good that you're ok and there was no vehicle behind you thinking they'd follow you through the intersection.

[rusninja]

Originally Posted by Trailerboy531

You took it to a dealer? Have you learned nothing on this site?

I crashed neer work i was on my lunch break dealer is neer my work offered to pick it up i rather have him try to fix it then i just pay it for towing home.

[Trailerboy531]

it would have been cheaper to tow....

[beninja]

Originally Posted by 02337

Learned this early on, except I hit the back brake hard starting to fishtail thnkfully I didn't go down.... Learned my lesson about back brakes

Same here, tail started wagging a bit and now I just open up the throttle if I have any doubt.

[csmith12]

Bummer and glad your not hurt. Get er fixed back up and get right back on.

[Miles_Prower]

Glad you are ok! Sorry to hear about that beauty.
When I lowsided, I rode it home about 20 miles. Forks were tweaked to one side and I just made do, wasn't a big issue, just had to keep the bars a little turned haha. But I didn't have a bent shifter so I guess that sucks lol.

[akima]

Sorry to hear about your crash. You'll get your girl all fixed up again! No one and nothing gets through life without some scars.

I take it you didn't get the ABS option?

[Byakkotai]

How goes your healing? Dealer get the repairs straightened out yet?

[rusninja]

No abs Though i dont think abs wouldnt of helped i didnt lock they front up. Im able to run around now and the dealer straightened my shifter so i am back to riding. :]

[greenaero]

Sorry to hear about this, I'm glad you are OK and the bike was not seriously damaged.

[choneofakind]

...you didn't lock up the front, and yet you went down during hard braking as you came upon a paint line? Somehow I find this hard to believe

The best thing to do after an accident is learn from it. Analyze what you did wrong, and learn from it. In this case, you did 2 things wrong. You were indecisive about the light, and you let your SR of grabbing brake take over during panic braking.

Do 2 things: 1) be more aware of your surroundings so you know your options immediately when you come to a light. This will significantly speed up your decision making process if the light changes. 2) Practice panic stops from 30mph in a deserted parking lot or neighborhood until it becomes muscle memory and you can feel right where the front wheel just starts to slip a bit but does not lock. If you can learn to feel that threshold, you will be able to brake on any surface.

[akima]

[rusninja]

wouldnt locking front throw me over :S I didnt change pressure i applied pressure maybe 20 feet and i didnt squeeze more on fear of locking up. It was pretty cold that morning.

[Jiggles]

I need a face and a palm, STAT

[akima]

Originally Posted by rusninja

wouldnt locking front throw me over

When we say "locking up" we mean that the front wheel has stopped rotating but the ground beneath it is still moving... so a skid. When you make your front wheel skid you have very little time to get off the brakes before the bike goes down. This is different to a rear wheel lock up where you'll frequently find stories on this forum of people locking up the rear wheel and skidding all the way to a stop without dropping the bike: probably with the rear end fish tailing side to side all the way. At our basic level of ability I think it's reasonable to say that you should try and avoid locking up both the front and the rear wheel if you can avoid it, but the front is definitely the worse one to lock up.

To avoid locking up the front this general tips should help:
* Never brake really hard while turning. Straighten up the bike first if you want to brake really hard.
* Don't brake if you are cornering hard (lots of lean).
* When you want to brake hard, slowly and smoothly apply the front brake and continue tightening the lever until you feel the conditions wont allow any more braking or until you feel the front wheel slip (at which point you want to get off the front brake). Doing this slowly and smoothly means that the tyre can gradually get a larger contact patch on the road (as the weight squishes it into the ground) thus giving you more grip and thus allowing even harder braking. Also smoothly and slowly applying the front brake progressively harder means that the front suspension doesn't all of a sudden compress over loading the front wheel and causing all the weight of the bike onto a small area of grip on the tyre.
* like Chris said: practice in a safe environment.
* if you know this stuff completely ignore the talkative squirrel
* also: avoiding hitting squirrels in the road... even if it means you have to sacrifice yourself and your love ones to save them... or spend eternity in squirrel hell

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by 02337

Learned this early on, except I hit the back brake hard starting to fishtail thnkfully I didn't go down.... Learned my lesson about back brakes

Hopefully it's the right lesson: Better the rear breaks loose than the front. Having learned the limits, don't be scared to lock the rear when braking hard because you can keep it locked and continue to work on stopping with the front. I'm not saying you should lock the rear when emergency braking, but locking the rear in the past once should not scare you away from trying to get maximum braking power out of it in the future. Locking up your front to avoid locking the rear would be a very bad thing. Releasing the rear while misaligned can mean bad things too, but you don't really lose braking power when locking it. Also remember to straighten up and don't brake while leaning/turning.

[Modzilla]

Originally Posted by CZroe

Hopefully it's the right lesson: Better the rear breaks loose than the front. Having learned the limits, don't be scared to lock the rear when braking hard because you can keep it locked and continue to work on stopping with the front. I'm not saying you should lock the rear when emergency braking, but locking the rear in the past once should not scare you away from trying to get maximum braking power out of it in the future. Locking up your front to avoid locking the rear would be a very bad thing. Releasing the rear while misaligned can mean bad things too, but you don't really lose braking power when locking it. Also remember to straighten up and don't brake while leaning/turning.

+1, and noticeably delivered without any self righteousness, so +2....

[Modzilla]

Originally Posted by akima

* also: avoiding hitting squirrels in the road... even if it means you have to sacrifice yourself and your love ones to save them... or spend eternity in squirrel hell

I've been doin it wrong all this time....

[Jiggles]

Originally Posted by CZroe

Hopefully it's the right lesson: Better the rear breaks loose than the front. Having learned the limits, don't be scared to lock the rear when braking hard because you can keep it locked and continue to work on stopping with the front. I'm not saying you should lock the rear when emergency braking, but locking the rear in the past once should not scare you away from trying to get maximum braking power out of it in the future. Locking up your front to avoid locking the rear would be a very bad thing. Releasing the rear while misaligned can mean bad things too, but you don't really lose braking power when locking it. Also remember to straighten up and don't brake while leaning/turning.

Locking up the front won't happen if you brake properly

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

Locking up the front won't happen if you brake properly

...just make sure there's enough space. The same goes for the rear brake. It's physics. The traction has limits and the bike simply can't stop instantaneously without that energy going somewhere. In emergency braking you try to flirt with the limits of traction without passing those limits. You have a lot more traction in the front as the weight shifts forward but it is still a balancing act between running out of room to stop, running out of traction to apply, or keeping momentum from sending you over your front tire in a failed endo-stoppie. If you didn't have enough space to stop without locking the front, well, sliding is not going to stop any faster. Even so, as you run out of space you also run out of reason to hold back on a brake that you obviously haven't reached the limits of as long as it still has traction. If you reach that limit right at the point of impact, oh well, you tried, but if you panic early and discover that limit with room to spare: you fail.

All I'm saying is that you should lock the rear rather than run out of space trying to stop without locking it, but you don't have that same option with the front. IOW, don't overload the front to tip-toe around overloading the rear.

While the vast majority of accidents from locked front wheels could have been prevented with proper braking technique, you could achieve maximum braking and still end up deciding between a collision and going down by locking the front. If I could think fast and it came down to continuing to apply progressive braking to stop without skidding and running over a small child or something, I might be inclined to lock it up anyway to avoid that.

[Alex]

The problem is that once you lock up the tire, either one, your stopping power goes down and the bike will travel farther than if you hadn't locked up. A sliding tire has less friction than a rolling tire. Locking up either tire unintentionally is a poor outcome. To your point, if you do lock up the rear at the end of emergency braking, and you didn't plan on steering/swerving anyway, it isn't as likely to put you on the ground quickly compared to locking up the front.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Alex

The problem is that once you lock up the tire, either one, your stopping power goes down and the bike will travel farther than if you hadn't locked up. A sliding tire has less friction than a rolling tire. Locking up either tire unintentionally is a poor outcome. To your point, if you do lock up the rear at the end of emergency braking, and you didn't plan on steering/swerving anyway, it isn't as likely to put you on the ground quickly compared to locking up the front.

Yep. Which is why the "lesson learned" needs to be "I now know my rear brake's limits and can push right up to that point when emergency braking" instead of "WOW! That's easy to lock up! I got lucky! I'm scared to use it now and will come closer to overloading the front brake in an effort to avoid that."

Be afraid of locking the front brake but know how to use it, put most of your stopping power on it, and use it with the rear brake. Getting maximum braking from your rear brake leaves braking power to spare on the front brake unless you were simply way too close for speed/conditions, so don't be afraid of the rear brake.

[Alex]

Originally Posted by CZroe

Getting maximum braking from your rear brake leaves braking power to spare on the front brake unless you were simply way too close for speed/conditions, so don't be afraid of the rear brake.

I disagree with this. Getting maximum braking from your rear brake in an emergency stop saves zero power to spare on the front brake. The front brake is just so much more capable, that even letting off of it in the slightest with the hope that the rear will make up for it just doesn't pencil out. What happens with the rear brake has a few percentage points at most of affect in braking distance. Getting the front brake the slightest bit wrong can extend the braking distance much, much longer.

[Modzilla]

as a general rule, from a guy who has dealt with a lot of HEAVY motorcycles (read "850lb harley cruisers on down") in addition to lighter sport bike riding/racing, hard braking is somethin' that you can do all the math and research in the world, but the only thing that helps is practice. find a school parking lot and do your homework. learn how YOUR brakes feel and respond.

60% front/40% rear is a nice round number to go by and shoot for from a mathematical standpoint, but what the hell does that mean? youre using your fingers on one and your toes on the other. how do you convert that from a statistic to a skill?

go practice! get experience with your bike. know it and how it responds to your touch. if ya get in a jam, ya just hope that you've practiced enough to respond to the situation by instinct. and yes, TRY not to lock up anything. if yer gonna lock it up, lock up the rear. if you lock up the rear, you can still guide with the front and stay upright, but you will not slow down any faster than using front brake only. and once the rear locks, dont let off the brake if the rear end tries to pass you. if you do, you'll experience what we like to call a highside....

lock up the front and yer prolly goin' down.

how do we avoid all this? practice.

[Jiggles]

60/40 doesn't work on a sportbike, try 90/10

[Modzilla]

Originally Posted by Jiggles

60/40 doesn't work on a sportbike, try 90/10

again, all you guys who like to spout your statistical knowledge arent really helping anyone. 60/40 indeed works fine when driving the speed limit and approaching a red light, ESPECIALLY when you know that the paint stripe is slippery. at 90/10 (or a "heavy front brake" mindset) you will most certainly slip and probably go down.

You need to learn to adjust to situations as a rider. damn the math.

[choneofakind]

@Modzilla that's why I suggested earlier to Rus that he practice panic braking from 30 in a safe place so he knows what it feels like to have either wheel at that threshold of braking.

While a very heavy bias towards the front brake isn't necessary (actually, it's very smooth to use a little more rear brake. That's what I do right just as I'm coming to a stop; I get off the front completely and use the rear) under normal conditions, it's still the strongest brake on the bike and that should be taken advantage of if needed. Therefore, a panic stop should be almost completely front brake.

Front brake is for stopping, rear brake is for slow speed control.


But anyhow, part of Rus's issue was that he was indecisive about the light, which gave him less space to stop, and he decided to stop for the light after all. This meant that he basically had to do a panic stop. Your point about 60/40 being fine for normal smooth stops, while correct, is not really valid because Rus's stop was not a smooth and calculated one. His stop was a hard braking panic stop that caused his SR of grabbing the brake lever (instead of squeezing) to kick in.

So chill a bit. Both of you are right, you're just speaking from different experiences and different riding styles.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by Alex

I disagree with this. Getting maximum braking from your rear brake in an emergency stop saves zero power to spare on the front brake. The front brake is just so much more capable, that even letting off of it in the slightest with the hope that the rear will make up for it just doesn't pencil out. What happens with the rear brake has a few percentage points at most of affect in braking distance. Getting the front brake the slightest bit wrong can extend the braking distance much, much longer.

In that context it sounds like I was talking about it appreciably freeing up more stopping power to the front, but I wasn't. I agree that the front brake is an order of magnitude more capable than the rear and that the rear can only affect stopping distance by a few percent. That's why I'm not talking about letting off the front brake in favor of the rear brake. I'm saying that you don't truly know the limit of your front brake unless it's broken loose and, because of that, you don't WANT to find out that way, especially if you have braking power left at the rear. Even when practicing in a parking lot, you are probably going to get hurt and damage your bike if you lock your front!

I'm talking about not knowing the limit of your front brake in an emergency stop and it's too late if you end up finding that limit the hard way. If you use your rear brake to the limit AND the front brake to the limit and still needed more to stop in time, at least you did everything you could and minimized impact forces. If you use your rear brake to the limit and had braking power to spare on the front brake, good: You managed to stop without needing maximum braking and had a bit more to spare on the front brake if the situation demanded it. If you used only your front to the limit and still needed more but were too scared of locking up the rear to involve it more, then bad: you have no front braking power left to involve without locking it up. Without knowing the limit, you just may add more on the front instead with potentially disastrous results. It is only logical to use both to the limits you are aware of before resorting to adding any more to the front.

To brake progressively with the front brake means to keep adding force as the weight shifts and traction builds instead of grabbing all at once (still can be done very fast because the forces change exponentially). Clearly, you can add too much too fast, which is exactly what happens when you grab at the brake while going full speed. Unfortunately, this makes your traction limit a function of speed and distance. You may know some of what it's capable of by knowing what you've gotten away with in the past but you still don't know the limits of what it's capable of unless you passed it with all the terrible potential that has. On the other hand, you can safely get away with "knowing" your rear brake's limits even though you can't safely get away with "knowing" your front's. You don't want to find out while being scared to find the rear's limit. That was my only real point.

[choneofakind]

...haven't we had this argument enough?

[akima]

Originally Posted by CZroe

I'm saying that you don't truly know the limit of your front brake unless it's broken loose and, because of that, you don't WANT to find out that way, especially if you have braking power left at the rear. Even when practicing in a parking lot, you are probably going to get hurt and damage your bike if you lock your front!

I've deliberately made my front wheel lock up while practising. It didn't feel scary because I was ready for it and got off the brakes as soon as it happened. I started out by making it lock up at lower speed on some slightly dusty/dirty ground with my weight back on the bike. I carefully worked my way up to higher speed. I did this to get a feel of how the bike behaves when this happens.

Personally I think it's safe to practice braking up to your limits with the front brake so long as you've got your head screwed on straight and think about what you're doing, where you're doing it and you very slowly up-the-game. Ideally do it on a cheap bike incase things go wrong I don't have a cheap bike so I had to be extra careful

One very safe way someone can play around with front wheel lockup physics is on a mountain bike, off-road. You can safely lock up your front wheel and let it skid even to the point you hit the dirt an you'll be fine! Obviously wear a helmet and pads. I was out riding in the snow on my mountain bike on Sunday and had lots of fun playing around with no-traction

[choneofakind]

Originally Posted by akima

One very safe way someone can play around with front wheel lockup physics is on a mountain bike, off-road. You can safely lock up your front wheel and let it skid even to the point you hit the dirt an you'll be fine! Obviously wear a helmet and pads. I was out riding in the snow on my mountain bike on Sunday and had lots of fun playing around with no-traction

That's how I learned it now go ride on a snowy road that hasn't been cleared and has been packed in non-uniformly by a dozen or so cars driving over it. Even with really really low tire pressures, it's a challenge to keep going in a straight line and not death grip the bars.

[akima]

Originally Posted by choneofakind

Even with really really low tire pressures, it's a challenge to keep going in a straight line and not death grip the bars.

It's fun though isn't it! I love that feeling of the bike constantly loosing traction and sliding around. The good feeling was multiplied when I was at the Alps and gravity was pulling me at speed down the track I had a few squirrely moments, but it mostly seemed like so long as I kept choosing a good path for the bike, kept my weight back and then let the bike move around as it wanted to I was fine. Soooo much fun!! ... sorry for the thread jack