That rear brake

[the Ferret]

OK here's the deal ..."from my perspective". A lot of us have been riding a long time. For me personally I am coming up in May on my 50th year of riding on the street.. not on mini bikes in the neighborhood, although I did that too (I just don't count riding on minis in the dirt pre puberty as years riding YMMV, we just had to make the mini bikes using old lawn mower engines). But on the street with traffic on manufacture built dedicated street motorcycles. We grew up riding where the brakes on both ends were not that good, and we NEEDED both brakes to function and aid in the stopping process. The better the front brake, the faster we could stop, the better the rear brake, the even faster we could stop. Muscle memory and habit....and instructions from the manufacturers, said USE BOTH BRAKES AT ALL TIMES WHEN STOPPING.I believe if you open your owners manual and the little riding instruction manual that comes with your CB 1100, you will also find this printed, even today.

I have always enjoyed a bike with good brakes on both wheels, and consider them an asset to my safety when riding on the street.

Somewhere, sometime, and unbeknownst to me, someone decided rear brakes are not important. Not sure when that happened, but it is very disconcerting to me. When I complained to Honda about the rear brakes on my 13, the 30 year old service rep for Honda told me I needed to learn how to ride. Well, ok then!

Old Dog I suppose, but I still use both brakes when stopping and I suppose I always will. Can't get used to these new tricks.

and PS I know about weight transfer and all that ..depending on which report 90/10..80/20..70/30..60/40 whatever, but why give up ANY of your rear braking ability by using only the front brake?

[DGShannon_imp]

OK here's the deal ..."from my perspective". A lot of us have been riding a long time. For me personally I am coming up in May on my 50th year of riding on the street.. not on mini bikes in the neighborhood, although I did that too (I just don't count riding on minis in the dirt pre puberty as years riding YMMV, we just had to make the mini bikes using old lawn mower engines). But on the street with traffic on manufacture built dedicated street motorcycles. We grew up riding where the brakes on both ends were not that good, and we NEEDED both brakes to function and aid in the stopping process. The better the front brake, the faster we could stop, the better the rear brake, the even faster we could stop. Muscle memory and habit....and instructions from the manufacturers, said USE BOTH BRAKES AT ALL TIMES WHEN STOPPING.I believe if you open your owners manual and the little riding instruction manual that comes with your CB 1100, you will also find this printed, even today.

I have always enjoyed a bike with good brakes on both wheels, and consider them an asset to my safety when riding on the street.

Somewhere, sometime, and unbeknownst to me, someone decided rear brakes are not important. Not sure when that happened, but it is very disconcerting to me. When I complained to Honda about the rear brakes on my 13, the 30 year old service rep for Honda told me I needed to learn how to ride. Well, ok then!

Old Dog I suppose, but I still use both brakes when stopping and I suppose I always will. Can't get used to these new tricks.

and PS I know about weight transfer and all that ..depending on which report 90/10..80/20..70/30..60/40 whatever, but why give up ANY of your rear braking ability by using only the front brake?

Like you, I am at 50 years of riding, or more. A little over a year ago, I started doing track days (different bike!) with some buddies. I was amazed at the fact that we were being taught that we should NEVER use our rear brakes. It is not that rear brakes don't have a place on the track, but that would come with trail braking and such at the higher level classes. Down in the lower level classes, the focus was on ZERO rear brake in order to get folks to learn exactly how much power they had in modern, dual disc, setups. In fact, so much power, that you can lift the rear wheel off the ground!

So, here was the point... If (when) you use your front brake "correctly" you will have made your rear tire so light that there is no longer a strong enough contact with the track that your rear brake can do anything. Or worse, the contact patch is so light, that you can't modulate the rear brake well, and are at a high chance of sending it into a skid. So, their message was much like your young service rep. Learn to use your front brake "correctly" (learn how to ride) and forget all that futzing around with the rear brake.

With all that said, I would never pretend that I don't use my rear brake, on the street. But, I have to admit that after those track days I use it much less, and in an entirely different way than I used to.

I firmly believe that the vast majority of riders are scared of their front brake, fearful of using "too much" and thus losing the front end. It is a self preservation instinct which must be overcome through practice. I think you see this surface in other threads, such as the "ABS Saved Me Today" elsewhere on this forum. The idea that I can slam on the brakes as hard as I can, and ABS will kick in and prevent that from being "too much" is a palatable, and arguably safer, alternative to practicing until that skill becomes an automatic rider reaction. That tends to get verbalized with statements such as "skilled riders don't need ABS".

[the_undecider_imp]

As weak as I find the rear brake to be, it still can be used to assist in slowing, regular stops, panic stops, and trail braking. I find the level of effort to be out of sync with the front brake, so it takes a little thought and familiarity to use it efficiently. You can still lock up the rear and I find, despite the higher than normal pedal effort, the rear brake is easy to modulate. I would rather it be this way than either too grabby or have high pedal effort AND difficult to modulate (resulting in sudden lock up). I've had brakes that were all of the above, so the CB is not at the bottom of my list for rear brake feel. I was just disappointed given how neutral and natural the rest of the bike is, especially the front brakes, that the rear comes up a bit short. I do wonder how a steel braided line and some different pads would make it work.

[Guth_imp]

As the ferret said earlier in this thread, the rear brake should be capable of slowing you down. Whether or not you choose to do so (and I don't) you should be able to bring yourself to a stop in a "reasonable" amount of time using the only the rear brake. Sure, this is far less effective than using the front brakes, but a number of members have reported that their CB1100s failed this test — the rear brake wasn't even that good at scrubbing off speed. That's just not right. It has been reported by at least one of those members that having the rear brake system bled returned performance of the rear brake to the level expected.

As far as how we ride bikes today is concerned, the MSF basic rider training course still instructs people to use both front and rear brakes in conjunction with one another and definitely in a emergency stopping situation. In my recent close call that I documented elsewhere on this forum, you can bet that I applied both front and rear brakes when I had to stop in nothing flat and both assisted in hauling the bike to a stop in a very impressive manner. My reaction was simply force of habit. While the front brakes are far more effective at hauling the bike to a stop, properly using both front and back brakes together (modulating during weight transfer) certainly doesn't decrease braking power.

[INTP_imp]

A set of EBC HH pads will improve the rear brake.

[Motogeezer1949_imp]

Being as the rear brake on the CBDLX, IMO, just about perfect, I've been using them both simultaneously when I've needed to stop quickly. I like that neither will lock up. Great safety net.

[Henrik_imp]

I think much of it comes down to how you are riding, and what bike you are riding. Clearly if you are on track racing to get the best lap time, with a modern race bike, the rear brake is not there to slow you down, but for stability. Just look at the stoppie Pedrosa was pulling the other day in Motegi as an example. I doubt his rear brake would have helped him there to slow down!

However, when riding on the street we tend to not enter corners quite as aggressively, and so there is certainly more weight on the rear resulting in the rear brake then becoming effective. Finally, with bikes like cruisers, weight is considerably more to the rear, and with a further relaxed riding style, rear brake becomes even more important. Oh, and when you have a pillion, the rear is also more useful.

Personally, as mentioned earlier, I really only use the front simply because that is my style of riding. I don't have 50 years of riding experience on the street like the Ferret, but a good 30. However, I know that my riding style has evolved over those thirty years as a result of bikes improving as well as the type of bike I would ride. Clearly I did not ride my Africa Twin the same way as my Ducati 749.

[CIP57_imp]

I have been riding street since 1975, and they have changed. Anything linked or ABS has a weak rear. I have mentioned my CB has one of the best rear brakes of all the bikes i have owned. Its so sensitive i have to careful not to lock it up. During normal stops i always go to the rear first and then the front. Its probably only a second or two but i do go there first. The brakes on the CB would be near the top of the list of all the bikes I've have owned.

[redbirds_imp]

I have been riding street since 1975, and they have changed. Anything linked or ABS has a weak rear. I have mentioned my CB has one of the best rear brakes of all the bikes i have owned. Its so sensitive i have to careful not to lock it up. During normal stops i always go to the rear first and then the front. Its probably only a second or two but i do go there first. The brakes on the CB would be near the top of the list of all the bikes I've have owned.

+1 CB, Great brakes.

[Ack-CB11_imp]

The big wheels make it tougher to stop, I used the rear alone for trail-breaking into corners. General stopping was both front and back.
CW article:
http://www.cycleworld.com/2014/05/28/the...ng-skills/