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[ST] Rear Brake and high sides



I'm busy teaching myself not to use the rear brake.

I had a big slide that could have got nasty if I'd let the back brake go
on Sundays track day.

Going into turn two a bit hot I used a bit more front brake pressure
than I'd used in the previous lap. It's a bit downhill and off camber at
that point, plus a touch bumpy.

The extra dive must have unweighted the back and the back locked up and
drifted viciously to the left as I touched the back brake pedal.

I didn't let the brake go for fear of a high side, but eased the front
brake off instead. 

The slide drifted back and I ended up having to use the run off.

Richard M mailed me a link two weeks ago discussing high sides, and
there seemed to be three major contributors to a brake induced high
side: let the back brake go, turning into the slide and panic.

I read that thing again and again, and as the slide started on Sunday I
remember thinking don't panic, don't brake, don't change the line.....

It worked!

Thanks Richard!


Cheers


Marc

-----Original Message-----
From: st-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:st-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Masiak, Richard
Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 2:08 PM
To: ST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [ST] Rear Brake

I was thinking this morning on the ride into work.  What is the rear
brake on a motorcycle used for besides keeping down a wheelie?

I saw the TV story (and read a similar article) that showed three
methods of stopping.

1) Rear brake only (not effective)

2) Front brake only (very effective)

3) Front & rear brake together (just slightly better than using only the
front)

I use to use the rear in conjunction with the front riding on the
street.  It wasn't until I started track riding/racing where I stopped
using the rear brake.  That habit carried over onto my current street
riding.  I might still use a bit of rear but not much.

I spoke to a 600cc racer and he mentioned he doesn't use the rear brake.
He did go on to say that it's the high level factory racers (Zemke,
Duhamel, Mladin, etc) that only use the rear brake to slide and point
the bike into a turn.  Is that true?  I thought power not brake was used
to slide the rear.  Or does it depend on the situation?

I don't want to turn this into a long discussion, but any thoughts?

Rich
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