5 ms·

On a bike you have the front brake lever at the throttle on the right hand. You always, always have to have at least two fingers on the brake lever and control

by lstodd 1y ago

On a bike you have the front brake lever at the throttle on the right hand. You always, always have to have at least two fingers on the brake lever and control the throttle with the thumb and palm. It is completely irresponsible to ride not doing that because sudden obstacle will not give you enough time to put them back on it. Then you lose 60-80% of braking power for a second or two. If you are doing it right then when you drop throttle you almost automatically slightly pull the brake lever. If the lever and brake light switch on it are adjusted properly like they should be, you have the brake lights on. Nice project, but..

euroderf 1y ago
On a motorcycle it is essential to have the mindset that they're out to kill you.
maikhoepfel 1y ago
I know a few bikers do something similar as you describe. I want to point out it is not generally accepted truth, e.g. the German ADAC explixitly teaches to keep fingers off the brake until needed. The idea being that if you're surprised by something, you're much more likely to slam the brake, introducing instability or locking up the front. You don't hover over the brake in a car either.
- nickthegreek 1y ago
  The local state motorcycle training course will not allow you to cover the brake while learning. They consider it especially dangerous for new riders for the reason you stated.
  - lstodd 1y ago
    This looks counterproductive. I can get that when one first learns to ride and therefore has no idea of what to expect from the road and from the bike this sort of precaution might have some sense. For about first couple hundred of kilometers/miles. But no more than that. The whole point of learning to ride is to train yourself to always be prepared and situationally aware, to maintain total awareness of what you are doing, what is going on ahead and behind you, and keeping being able to correctly react as fast as possible whatever happens. Thus fingers on the brake. They are seriously out there to kill you. Be it distracted car drivers, sloppy road maintenance, stray dogs, bad weather, random idiots.. any of this will kill you if you relax. An occassional lowside or two in one's first two seasons most likely won't. Given even a mediocre protection set, one will get away with a bit of shock and maybe needing a new pair of pants. And a whole lot of training of the kind no school can give. Like when to pull the front brake and when to just open throttle and hope for the best. Besides there is a saying - if you do not crash once a season, you do not ride, period. Which is a grim reminder of that if one does not push oneself, one is losing skill. I ride for about 30 years already and this is true. Motorcycles are not safe and cannot be safe, safety isn't in the concept, and this is what we love about them.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - onethought 1y ago
    > I don't know much about motorcycle riding, but it seems my heuristic works well. If you don't know much about motorcycle riding, then maybe STFU. Also how could you judge if your heuristic works well, if you don't understand the topic? GP is actually correct.
    - potato3732842 1y ago
      >Also how could you judge if your heuristic works well, Seems to work damn well on every topic I do know about.
- lstodd 1y ago
  It is quite hard to lock the front going straight. A [edit] stoppie while spectacular is a quite simple trick. I basically did a couple the second time I rode a bike. Unintentional at that. One can do a lowside, that is losing traction (not even locking, but just overspeeding and then braking, even engine-braking) in a turn. But this point is basically the first that must be taught: how to enter and exit turns properly. I think ADAC is just being lazy / or too much ass-covering. But I don't know. I'm self-taught and not in Germany.
onethought 1y ago
This technique is explicitly frowned upon in a number of licensing tests. Hand is required to be completely on throttle, or all four fingers completely on brake. So I'm not sure "completely irresponsible" is the right term, as it's actually taught that way. If you drop the throttle, you will already begin to decelerate from the engine your fingers are A LOT faster than "a second or two" in clasping the brake... easily sub one second.
- randlet 1y ago
  Not to mention that the rear brake comes into play as applying the rear brake will transfer weight to the front allowing you to apply your front brakes harder.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - lstodd 1y ago
    Not in my experience (20yrs). If it's all-in-or-we're dead, you either do a stoppie and hope, or do a deliberate lowside and also hope someone will patch you up once they dislodge your parts from wherever you end up in. In either case it's front brake. A bit of tilt for the second case. The rear brake is not needed at all. If it's just a overspeed corner, you try to slow down gently, while maintaining both wheels on the trajectory. So just a little play with throttle and just a little front brake so that the bike stays balanced so to say. No rear brake at all because dropping the throttle a bit is all that's needed for the rear wheel. If that is not enough, you're not going to make that corner, you have had too much speed coming in, and you will pay for that right now by crashing into something. I learned this in 1990s when I first started riding. Those are the basics.
    - randlet 1y ago
      With all due respect it sounds like you could use a refresher on motorcycle physics.
- lstodd 1y ago

by lstodd 1y ago

euroderf 1y ago

On a motorcycle it is essential to have the mindset that they're out to kill you.

maikhoepfel 1y ago

I know a few bikers do something similar as you describe. I want to point out it is not generally accepted truth, e.g. the German ADAC explixitly teaches to keep fingers off the brake until needed. The idea being that if you're surprised by something, you're much more likely to slam the brake, introducing instability or locking up the front. You don't hover over the brake in a car either.

nickthegreek 1y ago
The local state motorcycle training course will not allow you to cover the brake while learning. They consider it especially dangerous for new riders for the reason you stated.
- lstodd 1y ago
  This looks counterproductive. I can get that when one first learns to ride and therefore has no idea of what to expect from the road and from the bike this sort of precaution might have some sense. For about first couple hundred of kilometers/miles. But no more than that. The whole point of learning to ride is to train yourself to always be prepared and situationally aware, to maintain total awareness of what you are doing, what is going on ahead and behind you, and keeping being able to correctly react as fast as possible whatever happens. Thus fingers on the brake. They are seriously out there to kill you. Be it distracted car drivers, sloppy road maintenance, stray dogs, bad weather, random idiots.. any of this will kill you if you relax. An occassional lowside or two in one's first two seasons most likely won't. Given even a mediocre protection set, one will get away with a bit of shock and maybe needing a new pair of pants. And a whole lot of training of the kind no school can give. Like when to pull the front brake and when to just open throttle and hope for the best. Besides there is a saying - if you do not crash once a season, you do not ride, period. Which is a grim reminder of that if one does not push oneself, one is losing skill. I ride for about 30 years already and this is true. Motorcycles are not safe and cannot be safe, safety isn't in the concept, and this is what we love about them.
potato3732842 1y ago
[flagged]
- onethought 1y ago
  > I don't know much about motorcycle riding, but it seems my heuristic works well. If you don't know much about motorcycle riding, then maybe STFU. Also how could you judge if your heuristic works well, if you don't understand the topic? GP is actually correct.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >Also how could you judge if your heuristic works well, Seems to work damn well on every topic I do know about.
lstodd 1y ago
It is quite hard to lock the front going straight. A [edit] stoppie while spectacular is a quite simple trick. I basically did a couple the second time I rode a bike. Unintentional at that. One can do a lowside, that is losing traction (not even locking, but just overspeeding and then braking, even engine-braking) in a turn. But this point is basically the first that must be taught: how to enter and exit turns properly. I think ADAC is just being lazy / or too much ass-covering. But I don't know. I'm self-taught and not in Germany.

onethought 1y ago

This technique is explicitly frowned upon in a number of licensing tests. Hand is required to be completely on throttle, or all four fingers completely on brake. So I'm not sure "completely irresponsible" is the right term, as it's actually taught that way. If you drop the throttle, you will already begin to decelerate from the engine your fingers are A LOT faster than "a second or two" in clasping the brake... easily sub one second.

randlet 1y ago
Not to mention that the rear brake comes into play as applying the rear brake will transfer weight to the front allowing you to apply your front brakes harder.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- lstodd 1y ago
  Not in my experience (20yrs). If it's all-in-or-we're dead, you either do a stoppie and hope, or do a deliberate lowside and also hope someone will patch you up once they dislodge your parts from wherever you end up in. In either case it's front brake. A bit of tilt for the second case. The rear brake is not needed at all. If it's just a overspeed corner, you try to slow down gently, while maintaining both wheels on the trajectory. So just a little play with throttle and just a little front brake so that the bike stays balanced so to say. No rear brake at all because dropping the throttle a bit is all that's needed for the rear wheel. If that is not enough, you're not going to make that corner, you have had too much speed coming in, and you will pay for that right now by crashing into something. I learned this in 1990s when I first started riding. Those are the basics.
  - randlet 1y ago
    With all due respect it sounds like you could use a refresher on motorcycle physics.
lstodd 1y ago