Re: rear disk brakes - Motorcycles

[Christopher Eveland <eveland@domain.elided>]

> I recall that the rear end wants to come around when you're in a rear
> wheel skid on a bike just like in a car.  But on a motorcyle you're
> better able to compensate by throwing your personal body weight about a
> bit and "manhandling" things..

I've never had the joy of riding a motorcycle, but aren't they just like
the road and mountain bikes (which I have ridden) in that you can
control the front and rear breaks separately?

I know that on the bikes I've been on, the reason you don't spin out of
control when locking up the rear is that you can back off the front
brakes at the same time.  If you threshold braked on the front while
locking the rear, you'd definitely swap ends.  

In a car or truck, you don't have the luxury of adjusting the
proportioning as you're driving, so if you're stomping on the breaks as
hard as you can, and the rear is locked, chances are the fronts are
putting out a lot more stopping power than the rear and you're gonna
come around.

As for whats the most "performance" way of setting things up, (like in
the porsche case), first off, first lets see a show of hands of the
people who are worried about maximum cornering speed for their scout, so
I know who not to accept rides from. :^)  Then, what you want to do is
set things up so you get as close as possible to an even balance.  Too
much oversteer or too much understeer and you're not going to be as
fast.  Any time the wheels lock up, or spin, they are loosing traction,
and you're loosing speed on the track.

And my last $0.02 on this topic: I wouldn't be too hard on anti-lock
breaks.  Sure, I'm not going to buy anything expensive enough to have
them anytime soon, but I've driven them on ice before, and I think
they're a plus.  Sure, you can do the same thing with your feet and some
skill, but frankly, they make things a _lot_ easier and somewhat less
stressful.

-Chris