Читать книгу Proficient Motorcycling - David L. Hough - Страница 61

Back in the old days, lots of people got killed in motorcar and motorcycle accidents exacerbated by weak brakes. Lawrence (of Arabia) didn’t die falling off a camel; he died crashing his Brough Superior into a stone wall as an alternative to plowing into some children who popped into view on the narrow English road. In the United States, the standard quick-stop technique for yesteryear’s motor officers was to throw the black and white on its side and hope it would grind to a stop on the axle nuts and crash bars. Many police academies still teach the technique of laying it down, even though officers may be riding machines with sticky rubber and ABS brakes, which can stop a lot quicker on the rubber than on chrome. Frankly, I’ve always assumed that laying it down is a crash.

Have you ever heard a fellow rider describe a panic stop during which the tires were sliding? For example, here’s Zoomie Zed explaining a near collision: “I’m cruising along minding my own business when this chickie babe in a Cherokee zooms out of an alley. I jam on the brake real quick. I’m braking so hard the rear tire is smokin’ right to a stop. My engine stalls just as my front wheel ends up about two inches from her front door. You shoulda seen the stupid look on her face!”

Good news, bad news, Zed. The good news is that you didn’t score another accident in your file and didn’t drop the bike. The bad news is that you didn’t stop as quickly as you could have. First, the front brake is the one that stops the bike. And jamming on the rear brake too quickly caused the tire to skid, which increased your stopping distance and could have resulted in a highside flip. Even if you had squeezed the front brake lever, you would have wasted a lot of stopping distance reaching for the lever. A clever rider would know that cars pulling out of alleys account for about one out of every six motorcycle fatalities, so you should have been prepared to make a quick stop when you saw the car nosing out. One more thing, Zed: it helps to squeeze the clutch during a quick stop, so you can concentrate on the brakes and keep the engine from locking up the rear wheel.

Up on those twisty mountain roads, lots of experienced riders think it’s clever to ride a steady pace that doesn’t require any braking. The idea is that smooth is good and that speed changes are the opposite of smooth. Riding a steady pace is enjoyable, but the problem is that those back roads contain hazards such as farm tractors, wild deer, loose gravel, and mud-lubricated corners. You don’t usually get much advance warning of such hazards, so you may have to brake hard at the last moment to avoid a disaster, and you may have to do that aggressive braking while rounding a corner.

What’s more, that twisty mountain road eventually comes to town. As you come off the hill and find yourself slogging through urban traffic, your biggest challenge might be avoiding a left-turning motorist or a car dodging the wrong way across a parking lot. So whether you ride conservatively or closer to the edge of the envelope, hard braking should be a part of your habit patterns. Rather than think of smooth as never using the brakes, I prefer to think of smooth as being able to brake right up to the limits of traction without upsetting the bike or getting excited, whether rounding a corner or negotiating traffic.