A speeding biker applied sudden brake; then what happened?
A speeding biker applied sudden brake combined with the stupid design for pillion rider throwing off the pillion rider to the top. No helmet for either of them – lucky they are alive.
In many countries, starting motorcycle riders have to find out how to brake well themselves. But even when you did receive lessons in braking, it is advisable to keep practising, especially when you change bikes.
To be able to brake, you need grip. So before reading about braking, it’s good to knwo what influences grip.
Intuitively, everybody knows what grip is, and especially, what little grip is: You will almost certainly brake very carefully on a slippery road, and rightly so.
But what is grip exactly?
Grip is friction, grip is the resistance that the tire feels with the surface of the road.
Withour friction of the air and of the road, a motorcycle wouldn’t need any fuel, after reaching the desired speed. But unfortunately, because we live in an imperfect world, full of friction, we do need fuel.
That same friction of the road surface, that same grip, is of use, because you need it to accelerate (the tires push themselves against the surface of the road), and to decelerate, to brake.
So it seems as though your braking distance will be shorter as your motorcycle is heavier; trucks then would have an ultra-short braking distance…
So that’s not how it works.
When you brake, the weight of the motorcycle works against the braking distance as well as in favor of it, because the motorcycle will tend to keep its speed, the more weight, the more reluctance to decelerate. So you need more braking power to stop the bike.
