Covering the brake

only you would pick up on this sort of distinction. ;-)

 

Well I recognise all of that but I have found myself covering the levers
when there is no practical reason so to do.

Probably the thing I'm most scared of and have practiced least. I really
have no idea how hard I can safely brake on any of my bikes.

my brain still dissolves when trying to understand countersteering. I
simply rely on the fact that I manage to get round corners OK. Oh and Mr
Cordon did a little evaluatory exercise on this subject and I passed
with no problems whatsoever - therefore I must do it and do it OK. Just
don't ask me to explain.

I am worried - you've agreed with just about everything I wrote. I think
that is definitely a first.

 

It's one of my strengths.

 

Two answers:

1) indeed, I really *need* that kind of pressure.
2) heh.
3) quite: having commuted, without major mishap[a], to Central London
for fecking ages, I need some out-of-town, up-themselves, know-it-all
to tell me how to do it. Monday's run, feet-up, took 12-13 minutes to
cover 6 miles, all in the 30mph limits, without stopping. That said, I
have no doubt whatsoever that some IAM observers would take great
delight in telling me where I was going wrong.


[a] Z750/GPO van interface in '83 notwithstanding. In mitigation, I
was 21, and in a hurry. Not a good combination at 8:15 on Blackfriars
Bridge Rd.
--
| ___ Salad Dodger
|/ \
_/_____\_ GL1500SEV/CBR1100XXX/KH500A8/TS250C
|_\_____/_| ..66073../..15556.../.Going./.Going
(>|_|_|<) TPPFATUICG#7 DIAABTCOD#9 YTC#4 PM#5
|__|_|__| BOTAFOT #70 BOTAFOF #09 two#11 WG*
\ |^| / IbW#0 & KotIbW# BotTOS#6 GP#4
\|^|/ ANORAK#17
'^' RBR-Visited:35 Pts: 705 Miles:2429

 

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

That's either an upper middle class euphemism, or a frighteningly
accurate description of Simes.

Or both, perhaps.

 

I exist only to serve.

 

The IAM view on filterring speeds backs up Porl or whoever it was that
said they don't do more than 15mph faster than the traffic...

Erm, I seem to have oversnipped...

Most certainly not...

--
O
1 Black, shortly to undergo extensive surgery.
1 Red, undergoing lightweight surgery. -----
1 Blue, for Power-Ranger baiting. | o |
Numbers ... | o |
Stuff ... | ooo |
Life ... -----

 

... and the time before that, chin-nuts.

 

I travel great distances (ish) in 3 vehicles, cage, bike and push-bike...

It's amazing how your brain does the right thing in an emergency on each
without any concious thought.

 

Certainly. Is Sir pre-cannulated, and has Sir any preferences as regards
mean drip transient time?

 

It isn't the force that I use as an indicator - it's the number of
pumps required before something apparently happens ...

 

Pushbike for you soon, then.

Why dangerous?

This is a serious question, and a point I expected to come out
earlier.

Because I habitually ride with two fingers resting flat on the brake
lever, do I have less control over the direction of the handlebars,
which I move about with pressure from the heel of my hands when on the
move?

Is your concern regarding safety due to the increased chance of
involuntarily grabbing a handful in an inappropriate moment?

I have an open mind on the subject; I'm looking to learn, and in the
process, due to asking the question in an open forum, encourage others
to ask themselves similar questions about their riding habits. I'm
quite comfortable riding with extended fingers, although when the
Suzuki vibes get to me and my little and third fingers go numb I do
move my hand about until the familiar pins and needles recur.

I don't use the brakes (IMHO) overmuch, or particularly hard unless
pushing on, when late hard braking in a straight line is the order of
the day. Thinking about it now, I consider that when I am "pushing
on" (this is a relative term, applicable to my comfort zone and not as
quick as some, but quick enough to generally hold my own (f'naar))
that the bike is happier and that I have more consistent control by
leaving my fingers on the brake lever.

Scenario: charging up to a corner, apply a good handful of front
brake, drop a cog most likely, release brake and tip in. Push the
inside bar, pull the outside bar, roll the throttle on all the way
round the corner, WFO as the bike comes upright. Index and second
fingers still on the brake lever all the way. Actually, this is not
true. The fingers over the lever may wave around in the breeze a bit,
mid-corner. I wouldn't/couldn't brake when committed in this way in
any case. Hah!

All I need to do is squeeze, hold, release and relax the fingers. You
and others apparently have to retract your fingers and curl them down
inside the lever and round the grip. I appreciate that you do this
without thinking about it hundreds if not thousands of times, each
time you go out and so are well practiced. I don't think that my
directional control or stability are adversely affected by my method -
in fact, quite the reverse. This applies in spades in Winter, when
wearing bulky gloves - this is one reason that I habitually rest on
the brake lever, after a couple of fumbling incidents when wearing
Pathan Lobsters.

In the case of an unexpected hazard popping up, I am firmly of the
belief that the fraction of a second saved by not having to get
fingers on the lever could be vital in at least reducing the
seriousness of the situation, if not avoiding it completely. I would
further suggest that in such a case, a non-brake-coverer would
instinctively go for the brake with all four fingers, "grabbing a
handful".

IME "grabbing a handful" badly affects the stability of the bike.
Sudden removal of the four fingers from the twistgrip and transferring
them to the brake lever is likely to cause a wobble. Heaving the
lever towards the bar causes massive fork dive - which to an
unbalanced bike is pretty serious. I'm no Riding God and I think my
way is safer for me - and safer for the majority of others, too.


I'm still a newbie at this, see - despite my grey hairs, I don't have
the decades in the saddle that a lot of people here have. I came to
bikes comparatively late in life, despite a promising start which was
abruptly curtailed by the death of a friend on a bike I'd sold him and
the consequent parental pressure to move to four wheels. I still
managed to do a few things on and with bikes and bikers that my
parents would not have approved of (an inverted wheelie largely off
the pillion of a bike going up Westgate Hill springs readily to mind)
but cars were my bag for many years.

I have, in my defence, done _lots_ with cars: rallying on tarmac and
loose surfaces, racing on tarmac circuits; banger racing on shale.
I've done vehicle repair and recovery and driven thousands of miles
towing overloaded trailers. I've done race schools, rally schools,
advanced training and all sorts of naughtier stuff. I wish I'd had a
bike earlier, because it had made me a better driver - certainly WRT
respect for other road users (and lack of it), planning manoeuvres and
anticipation.


Now, the bike is my main transport. Frequently for convenience in
getting through traffic, often for the sake of higher average speed; I
take the bike by choice. Quite often, there is no choice - the car is
required elsewhere, so I must take the bike. I do a considerable (by
my standards) mileage bike-borne every year, much more frequently for
purpose rather than pleasure. And I fucking love it ;-)

I'm quick enough for me. I don't anticipate getting much quicker, I
can at least hold my own with 90% of people I ride with or meet on the
road. I have yet to acquire the depth of experience which allows a
lot of you to do the things you do and get away with it. By the time
I acquire that experience, I'll be too old to use it. Life's a bitch.

I can't afford to do advanced training or track days. uk.r.m. taught
me how to ride, how to filter safeishly, how to countersteer and how
to get through traffic. Now I want more. I want to know how to
improve, become smoother - and perhaps even a little quicker: but
really I just want to be better.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've (wanted) to take things apart to
find out how they work. Sometimes, I have been less than successful
at putting them back together again. Now, I'm a half-decent
mechanic-cum-bodger and reassembly is frequently the reverse of
dismantling. So I'm not that concerned about taking my riding apart
and having a look at it, IYSWIM. I do like to analyse things - it's
part of my anal makeup ...

On braking - I'm not a heavy user of brake pads. In fact, the RF is
the first bike in my ownership on which I have had to change pads.
The MOT tester warned me last year that the (EBC HH) pads were low and
needed replacement. This year, he made the same warning and I
couldn't tell him that it was the same set with another 10k miles on
them.

Front tyres - I don't wear them rapidly. Probably 9k miles from a
front 020, which isn't bad for a heavy bike like the RF. They mark up
all the way to the edges and wear out on the shoulders rather than in
the centre, which indicates to me that I'm probably braking into
corners when banked over. I certainly drag the front a bit when
pushing on, which brings me back to my initial point ... in that I
consider re-curling my fingers round the grip by the point at which I
release the front brake would unsettle the bike to an unacceptable
degree.

So, if there's anybody who has got down this far - what do you, the
jury, reckon?

 

As usual Mr. Sweller, you are the exception to the rule. Do you cover
the pedal, then?

<VBG>

 

TBH, not consciously. The rearsets place the pedal under my foot but I
don't "cover it" in the context being discussed.

It's no laughing matter they're awful. A good 1/2 - 2/3 of travel is
slack. I really need to buy <shudder> some new brake shoes.

 

I wear both pads (10K) and tyres (4K-5K) quite quickly. The Guzzi is a
heavy bike with a lot of unsprung weight (although that has been
drastically reduced of late) and I do ask a lot of it.

Brake pad wear is heavy because the bike was underbraked for what it was
asked to do and the cast discs when rusty (which they do very /very/
quickly) can't do pad wear any good.

I'd be interested in seeing how pads last with the new bonkers four pot
brembos.

I don't think I can really comment as I've not owned a modern machine and
the Guzzi gets ridden at the "mercilessly" end of the spectrum.

Never changed any pads or shoes on an MZ.....

 

Furry muff. I'll mark your card appropriately ;-)

My idol has feet of clay. Surely you mean "reline the shoes with
several layers of the Morning Star" - although I understand that
Socialist weekly does provide superior retardation in wet conditions
at the expense of ultimate longevity ...

And anyway, I rode the RF through most of Winter without any rear
brake at all (due to a maladjustment that I don't want to go into,
ahem) and with between two and three pumps on the front to gain any
useful braking. Having said that, I suspect your riding is a) more
urban and b) more committed than mine.

On reflection and having seen you ride the Guzzi, I think you should
be committed on that basis alone. For everyone's safety.

 

new euphemism for "untidy"

It's got working brakes now...

Which sort of explains my ideology of not touching the brakes, nothing to
do with smoother, better thought out riding; they simply didn't have much
effect.

 

Champ says...

Thank god it's not just me .

 

I'll spend a week riding with the front brake covered, and see how it
goes. Then I'll have a more valid point of view.

In theory though, what you say about unwrapping your fingers from the
grip and curling them round the lever is interesting. It only takes a
small amount of force on the handlebars to change a bikes direction
slightly, so if you can be in a ballanced state riding with your fingers
resting on the lever, then the very small change needed to brake isn't
going to upset the bike too much.

My Bandit, being a bike built down to a price and being on skinnier
tyres than most sports type bikes is (imho) more easily upset by things
like grabbing a hand full. So it'll be interesting to see if a small
change in riding style can effect a bigger change in bike response.

Thanks for the thought provoking stuff Pip.

 

On the CG125, the front brake lever has the function of turning the rear
brake light on, oh, and lightly rubbing the inside of the front brake
drum to keep it from going rusty.