ABS: Good, or Bad?

[AzBob_imp]

We saw one of our member get into trouble with an ABS bike when a car was going to enter his path. That was dry pavement in the daylight. He did stop, but with his front end compressed he was enable to make any corrections.

Lets just use an example:

Wet pavement and a car pulls out in front of you, you have ABS but the pulsating of the brakes does not allow you to stop in time, how do you change direction?? You don't

Non abs you feather the front and hard on the rear// your not going to stop on time, you have options. Lock up the rear and change direction hoping you don't high side, or just lock it up and low side and let the bike go out from under you. I'm sure a lot of member here have rode dirt, this is a common practice.

There's no doubt a new or inexperienced rider would be better off with ABS.

Edit: LOL I can remember when we where kids on our dirt bikes doing this all the time but with age I'm not sure how well this would turn out. I would like to think it would be instinct but I'm not sure.

So, without ABS, he would have locked up the front tire, washed-out the front end, and fallen. Seems like ABS saved his butt (and bike) from an accident to me.

Good save FB your riding experience helped you a lot. Those close calls happens and you kept your cool and made it

Since Ridem32 has shown up it has certainly taken the load off of me. Every single thing he has said is correct here. We have very similar backgrounds, extensive dirt riding, dual-sport, motocross/desert, also I don't know all his experience but I have roadraced and taught with a track school, and continue to do track days on my GSX-R.

One thing that should be thought about here is that your bike should decelerate just as fast as it can accelerate. Most bikes can pull more Gs with the brakes than they can with the throttle, but only if the rider knows how. Anyone can twist a throttle, but few riders are actually accomplished on the brakes. I enjoy braking as much as any other part of riding, even more, really. I love hauling the bike down at corner entry and smoothly rolling it onto the perfect line whilst easing off the brakes and picking up the throttle. I love just braking HARD on clean straight pavement until a bit of daylight shows under the rear tire, so hard that it takes the same force as my body weight to brace myself against the bars.

At track days, there are a lot of guys and gals who like to take the superwide lookieloo line, which, BTW, is the slow line around the track. The shortest distance around the track is almost always the fastest, and squaring off the turn, Kenny Roberts-style, is the way to do it. But that requires great brake and throttle control in order to stuff it up the inside, "in slow, out fast". The wide, sweeping line uses little brakes or acceleration and anyone using this line to race is going to get smoked right up the inside all day long, but it's favored by newer riders because some schools teach it and talk it up. Riders like it because it doesn't require much braking or acceleration, something that can't be done when you are all the way over on the side of the tire. I like to take the tight line, square it off, stuff it in underneath, and then blast out earlier than the other guy, because I'm more upright and can get on the throttle sooner. It's a dirt-riding technique. Kenny Roberts talks about it extensively in his book, and Freddie Spencer remarked earlier this year about Marc Marquez re-introducing this technique that he and Kenny used in the 1980s; Roberts also mentioned this in another interview recently in MCN.

MotoGP bikes don't use ABS and the point is that all ABS systems do is compensate for a lack of skill or a mistake on the part of the rider. ABS cannot possibly stop the bike faster than a skilled rider on dry, clean pavement. As Ridem32 has correctly said, many tests are available that prove this. A very sophisticated control system can certainly help under wet or difficult conditions, but control systems vary greatly from one vehicle to the next. Some do nothing more than release the brake at or just before the point of lockup. Others are supplied with data from multiple accelerometers and lean angle sensors connected to a high-performance ECU.

The bottom line here is that until someone has mastered this very important skill, the discussion isn't meaningful. Most riders these days will never throw a leg over a dirtbike, they want to start out with something big and powerful. In such a case, I would want all the ABS, traction control, and ECU management in there that is available.

But it's not for me, and to demonstrate why, just a couple of months ago, Cycle World picked the GSX-R 750 as the best middleweight superbike available, as compared to the Ducati 899 twin and MV Agusta triple, both of which made more peak horsepower on the dyno. But the Suzuki had the fastest lap times (at the Streets of Willow) and also the fastest straightaway speeds. But, unlike the two Italian bikes, it did NOT have any electronic intervention, such as traction control; it's all analog and all up to the rider. It was rider skill that got the most out of the bike and that will always be the case.

The more we work at building skill the better off we are, but brake and engine intervention are here to stay. Newer riders should take advantage of all these things.

Please note: When I say "you" I mostly mean "dear reader" and not necessarily the person I quoted.

Comparing track riding to riding on the street is fallacious since the track is swept clean and there aren't cagers running around trying to kill you, dropping their ill-maintained vehicles' fluids all over the pavement. And MotoGP bikes all have traction control. (Rossi, cheating, blah, blah, doesn't matter, the TC is better than the rider).

That being said, the key word in your sentence, that I don't necessarily disagree with, is "skilled" rider. I submit that hardly anyone here/any where is a skilled rider ("skilled" such that it makes that sentence true for the vast majority of riders). Obviously, you have extensive experience, doing track days, teaching, and what-not. You have to realize that 99% of the motorcycling public has not ever done that, and have no desire to do so, and that's their choice.

That 99%'s first reaction to impending doom is to clamp down on the brakes as hard as they can; they know of no other avoidance technique. They don't know about threshold braking or have the wherewithal to swerve because they haven't been keeping abreast of their escape routes. What's more, as I mentioned previously, the surface over which we ride is a variable quantity. You cannot possibly know beforehand the condition of the road surface before something unexpected happens, by its very nature.

For riding on the street, ABS has one small disadvantage that only a tiny fraction of the motorcycling public would be detrimentally affected by. For EVERYONE ELSE (the 99%), ABS offers tremendous advantage. Clamp down on the lever, the front wheel will not wash out on you and you have a MUCH better chance of making it than without it. For the VAST MAJORITY OF RIDERS (which is to say, basically, everyone), ABS is better than not having ABS.

For those advocating sliding/dumping the bike in a possible accident situation, I ask, did you even take the MSF BRC? The coefficient of friction between the asphalt and tire is _WAY_ higher than between the asphalt and your jeans/leathers/whatever. You're still going to hit whatever it was, except now you're going to hit it at a higher rate of speed. Good luck with that.

Lastly, for those with "years of experience," I submit that it doesn't really mean anything. If you haven't practiced threshold braking ON THIS BIKE (which itself is hard because you really need outriggers to find the envelope unless you like a rashed-up bike), over many different kinds of surfaces, at least 1,000 times for each different kind (the generally accepted average number of times a person must repeat an action before it becomes subconscious muscle memory), all prior experience is basically moot. You have no idea where the threshold is for the front tire on this bike, and you're back into the crowd of 99% for whom ABS is a benefit because you can clamp on the binders with all your fury and not worry about washing out the front tire while utilizing the maximum braking force afforded to you by the braking system and the available traction of the road surface at the time.