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Hi!

I was trying to hint that riding on road & braking is a very different ball-game altogether.

And that too a Moto GP Motorcycle. The braking system would almost cost as much as a liter Motorcycle.

Engine braking is an expensive way to slow down a bike since all gearbox and drive components that wear down are unlikely to be cheap on replacement cost and labour.
Brake pads are relatively cheaper.
"Twist of the Wrist II"

While what you say is true, its a sync between engine braking & braking by using the levers.

When you go down the 'box at abnormal high speeds everytime, would the gear-box suffer. For eg, shifting to 2nd in an R15 when speed is over 60kmph+

And all this is rudimentary now, with the advancement of tech & slipper clutch. Of the recent & affordable bikes, the Ninja 300 comes equipped with one.

For braking, you may read a good bit here. Braking Gyaan post start from post #9.

These days many superbikes come with ABS, traction control and rear wheel proximity sensor, which helps a lot in braking effectively, though these reduce the fun in riding.

Honda Goldwing even comes with Airbags though I've no idea as how effective is that.

Dear Sheel,
Please look up the almost prolific amount of biking instructions and literature on the net.
Please also have a closer look at the brakes provided on your bike - both front and rear and put the gearbox inside the helmet into overdrive :)

Thanks for your advise. While reading about riding on the internet helps, nothing like riding & honing your skills.

Could you please elaborate this further?

Thanks

This is a really useful & informative thread. If I'd had the chance to read something like 18 years back, would not have had as many falls to learn the hard way :D

Just one more point I'd like to add regrading the use of clutch while braking, is that using the clutch will actually cause a slight spurt in the bikes speed (especially true at high speeds), as the engine is disengaged and this causes the wheels to spin freely.

In such situations, where emergency braking is required at high speeds, it is better to pump your front brake rapidly & use your rear brake forcefully without locking it, and down-shift as required. One can also engage the clutch once the brakes are biting in.

Never pump the brakes.

I learned this the hard way.

Luckily i did not crash but experienced a violent tank slapper. It was when my ninja was new and it was my first time on a powerful bike with powerful brakes.

What you are trying to do is mimic the ABS way of braking but it does not help.

The forks will dive violently and cause you to lose control over the front end when you pump the brakes, esp. the front brakes.

What also happens is that when the front brakes are applied, the front fork compresses and the tire's contact patch with the road increases. When you release the brakes this contact patch is lost and again when brakes are applied the contact patch starts to regain. This is inefficient and ineffective braking since contact patch already established is lost and you are attempting to regain it. Loss of precious time.

Effective braking should ensure that the contact patch from the tire with the road increases steadily so that there is no loss of control.

One should apply brakes with only 2 fingers to ensure the wheel does not get locked as well.

When the brakes are applied, increase the pressure on the brake lever progressively which will compress the forks and increase the contact patch between the tire and the road steadily and safely.

Never jab the lever.

Squeeze the lever to apply required pressure and increase the pressure to get better contact patch which will slow you down quickly and safely.

Never grab the brake lever too or you might wash out losing the front end. In panic situations, riders tend to grab the brake lever with all 4 fingers and jab it hard resulting in a wheel lock and loss of control.

Remember the two finger rule. :)

And of course, always use the front brakes and reserve the rear brakes for wet/gravel only and gingerly apply the rear brakes. Even in these situations, front brakes are applied. If speeds are high, rear brakes can be disastrous in wet or gravel.

So the key point is to ride at 80% of your limits and reserve the balance 20% of your skill for those panic moments. 80/20 rule.

Excessive use of rear brakes will cause the bike to lose the rear end and in a turn can also cause a high side. Do all the adjustments such as braking, down shifting, body positioning, etc. well before the entry into a turn or curve.

Please read up on Twist the Throttle by Keith Code or Sport Riding Techniques by Nick Ienatsch.

Braking is a skill that is mastered only with lots of practice.

Practice your braking in a safe and controlled environment and you will understand the limitations of your bike's capabilities.

Please do not try and mimic the ABS way of braking. In an ABS system, when a wheel lock is sensed, the brakes ease off but the contact patch is not lost since this happens in a microsecond.

In any riding school, they will always ask you to ignore the rear brakes or even disconnect them.

@aditiya While I appreciate and agree with most of what you wrote, I think this bit above needs some clarification. I think you may be using "gravel" as a synonym for "off-road" so there is some confusion here.

When off-road, it is possible to use front-brakes and rear-brakes if you feel the ground is firm and packed (i.e., not loose). But even here, it would be advisable to emphasize the rear-brake.

However, on gravel (i.e, truly loose sand and grit) it would be disastrous to use the front-brake , and even the rear brake has to be used gently. This is because the brakes can instantly lock-up the wheel on gravel. A locked-up wheel will not be spinning, and will cause your motorcycle to fall: A front-wheel lock-up will topple you in less than a second, and a rear-wheel lock-up in perhaps two seconds, if not released immediately.

My advise would be to not use front-brakes at all on true gravel, but rely on down-shifting ("engine-braking") to slow down. This will affect only the rear-wheel, and slow (but not stop) the wheel--- reducing the chance of an uncontrolled skid. A mild application of the rear-brake can also be used as the bike slows down.

My two cents: use at your own risk!:)

agree:. Best option is to control speeds in unknown territory so panic moments are minimal. :)

I have been thinking for a long time that my list of 25 tips in this thread did not cover one very important aspect of motorcycling: the use of gears to control the speed of the vehicle.

Engine braking was mentioned a number of times on this thread. This is the practice of dropping down one gear and releasing the clutch, so that the lower gear effectively operates as a brake and slows down the bike. If you want to slow the vehicle down a lot, say from the 5th gear, you will progressively have to drop to 4th, release the clutch for a second or two, drop to 3rd, release the clutch again, drop to 2nd,... you get the point. You have, of course, to release the clutch for engine braking to work. (Skipping down several gears, in one go, does not help: If you drop down several gears without releasing the clutch, you may cause the rear-wheel to skid when you finally release it).

Doing this in an emergency situation would be time-consuming and complicated. It is also not very effective, because engine braking effects only the rear wheel -- which alone is powered by the engine. However, as you know, most of the stopping power of the bike comes from the front brake. So, engine braking is not best for emergencies -- modern disk-brakes can stop the bike faster than engine braking. It is better in an emergency to just hold down the clutch and apply both brakes in a progressive manner (see the earlier posts on this thread). And because, in an emergency, you always do things instinctively, it is best to cultivate the habit of always holding down the clutch and using both brakes even in normal braking situations. (On gravel or off-road, use less or none of the front brake).

Engine braking is, however, really helpful in anticipated braking (as opposed to emergency braking), when you know before-hand that you have to slow down due to traffic or road conditions. Say, you are approaching an open intersection of two roads where you need to slow down (but not stop) before crossing, you could just drop a gear down and slow down. Or you are on a curve on the road where you need to slow down to better negotiate the curve, again engine braking can be used. In fact, in these situations using engine braking is better than using your brakes, because when you drop down a gear your engine revs will become higher, this allows you to accelerate faster once you pass the intersection/curve. If you use just the brakes, then your bike would lose both momentum and engine revs, so acceleration will be slower once the obstacle is passed. Engine braking also useful for slowing down safely from high speeds.

Thus motorcycle racers rely heavily on engine braking on the track, as it allows them to slow down safely and then accelerate faster after taking a curve. Sheel has posted some videos this:


http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motorb...ml#post1822414


While most of us do not race, learning engine braking can be a useful skill even for non-racers, because it allows you to slow down while keeping engine revs high enough to accelerate when necessary. If you are going on that Ladakh trip, it may be vital. For engine braking, and more generally, gear-control is very important when riding in the hills --- where using just brakes at every corner would make it difficult to accelerate/climb due to loss of momentum and engine revs.

Caution: If you are a complete newbie to the motorcycle, learn engine braking only after you have mastered the basics, say, after riding a few thousand kilometers.

Caveat: the usual warnings hold. I am no expert, and am quite fallible, in fact I have fallen off the motorbike several times (sorry, couldn't resist that!:D). Use this advice at your own risk. Experienced riders with a different take this topic, please post.

I agree with most of your post except on this part. The assumption seems to be that you need to use either engine braking or your actual brakes.
The right way would be to use both in conjunction. That is, in an emergency, use both the front and rear brakes completely while quickly dropping through the gears to as low a gear as possible. The front brake is the most critical piece in this but the additional engine braking will aid you control the bike better too rather than just keeping the clutch pulled in the entire time.
Hard braking with the clutch pulled in always will be slower than hard braking with the clutch pulled in only to quickly go down the gearbox. At least from what I have experienced.

The caveat in your post applies to mine as well (albeit the falls part :))

Cheers.

I am not sure this is a good idea. You may be setting yourself up for a highside:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highsider A high-side can be deadly.

A highside occurs during hard braking when the rear wheel is locked and sliding forward (making the motorcycle askew), but then suddenly regains traction. If the rear wheel is powered at that moment, it can create a sudden torque that throws the rider over the motorcycle. In my opinion, an easy way to avoid this is to keep the clutch pulled in during hard-braking, so that even if the rear wheel regains traction, there is no power in the wheel to create the overturning torque. The more powerful the bike, the more violent wil be the highside. I am not sure if my TBTS has that power, but your Ninja 250 probably has.:)

Check out http://www.lazymotorbike.eu/tips/braking/ and http://www.msgroup.org/articles.aspx for more on braking.

Another point, engine braking is not needed in emergencies, if the brakes are powerful enough. If your brakes are powerful enough to lock the wheels on a good surface, you have all the braking force you require --- for optimal braking requires a force just short of causing wheel lock-up.

Hey Rolling Thunda, this is one of the threads I was looking for.

Appreciate all the good work done by you and fellow BHPians here in this thread.

Apart from safe riding aspect I believe that safe riding / driving habits are also important to be safe on the road. Every time I see an accident on the road, I start thinking if there is a possibility that this could have been averted if either or both the riders / drivers had followed some safety habit.

Many times while riding / driving I come across some situations which sort of brushes from becoming an incident and I think if I learnt something from it and may be should practice better safety habits.

For example, when ever I am riding or driving on highways, when I need to stop for a leak I always choose a straight road where I can see say about 200 meters of the road and pull aside about 100 meters in the straight. so I have about 100 meters behind me and 100 meters in front ( with of course hazard lights on). So every vehicle passing by sees me well ahead and is aware of my presence (unless he is drunk / dozing..). Now I have seen cars pulled aside bang right at a tight curve , bang at the end of a upward gradient, In such a situation imagine if a vehicle is approaching that section with another vehicle trying to overtake it and the first one keeps to his extreme left and this parked car is totally blind to them and suddenly it is right on the parked car and he ploughs in. and there is an accident just occured.

So Guys always find a straight clear wide road to park / pull over your car / bike for your safety and other road users.

I think when some one mentioned engine braking as being effective they meant that it is effective as an add on along with you front & rear brakes.

I use it generally when I have overshot my braking range, and I know that with only my brakes in action I'll probably have a collision. then I start shifting down and releasing, normally just one gear shift helps me get in range.

So I feel it is not a preferred way of braking but I would rather do that than have a crash.

I am not sure I'll be able to do this during real real emergency braking as that will depend upon my presence of mind.