Rear brakes are easy to lockup.

I've been looking for a good place to practice low speed maneuvers and emergency braking. I finally found a motorcycle cop to talk to after searching for over a year. I asked him for a good place to practice panic stops and he didn't let me down. It's this nicely paved, long, straight hill, with no traffic on it. He said the department practices their low speed incline maneuvers there, which it's perfect for. This spot has allowed me to practice my emergency braking while ramping up the speed. Adding in that it's downhill makes it more difficult, which is good for practice.

I have had several instances where I have locked up my rear wheel in a panic stop. You need to be really careful at higher speeds that if you lose rear traction, don't just let off the brake, if your bike has fish-tailed, when you let off the brake it can whip back when it regains traction and eject you.

With that said, the stock brake on my 883 is surprisingly powerful. I'm really starting to dig into it properly now. Your front brake is where almost all of your stopping power is. But be careful, losing traction on the front tire is BAD BAD BAD. You can get away with sliding on your rear tire.

 

Interestingly the front is a 21 inch wheel and the rear is a 17 inch wheel. On my 2008 XL1200C the rear rotor is slightly larger dia. than the front. On most of the newer ones I see the front rotor is larger? It seems from looking at other bikes that you would want the rear to be smaller than the front by design. Also because most of the stopping power is on the front. Hmmm?

 

I would think so too, larger disc resulting in larger surface area for pads to travel across, which leads to less heat generated in the disc?

 

That's why I traded in my old Sportster for an ABS model.

 

I've been practicing more and more now that I have a good area to do it in, and I don't lock up anymore. Had a real incident the other day, if it had been before my practice regiment, I would have locked up the rear wheel like usual, but because of my recent practice and experimenting, I didn't.

 

The grit and grime left on the road after snow and ice have come and gone makes it extremely easy to lose traction. I have lost traction on the rear tire in these conditions just shifting down.