On two occasions now my rear brake has locked up when I really didn't expect them too. In both cases I was in a bit of a panic stop, car in front of me unexpectedly hitting their brakes hard. I've notoced that my rear brake has been doing a little squealing recently. I'm bothered by this as I rarely have had to lock up my rear wheel over the past 5 years of riding and for it happen twice in less than a week makes me think perhaps something is up with my rear brakes or possibly the tire. My rear tire has probably 5K on it and the brakes about 3500 miles (the tire came on a wheel I bought from Ebay and is a Dunlop 404). Anyhow, is there anything I should inspect on the tire other than tread depth and the brakes other than pad thickness? Just trying to determine if the bike has a problem or if I just messed up and used too much rear brake in these situations.

 

Locking the rear brake is indeed quite easy and, of course, dangerous. In a panic situation, it's dang near impossible not to lock it up - just remember, once you lock it, keep it locked and hit the front brake hard. I suppose there could be something amiss with the rear brake, but, I doubt it. There's really very little to keep the rear wheel from locking up other than technique - unfortunately, ABS isn't standard equipment on our bikes - too bad. Saw a BMW ad once where the rider gets off the road onto wet grass and hits both rear and front brakes as hard as possible - comes to a nice controllable stop, thanks to ABS - I used to have it on my previous bike - a BMW R1100RT - other than the riding position and numerous mechanical issues, a fine bike.

 

you have got to be kidding on the 404 on the bagger! wrong tire, wrong load rating.

 

Opps, your right...it's a D402, old habit as my last bike ran with 404's.

 

What's a rear brake?

 

Not exactly sure what you're getting at here, but thanks for the input

 

What he and others are getting at is that at least 70% of a motorcycle's stopping power comes from the front brake. Like Ted mentioned, it's all about technique.

 

I have found that it is very helpful to make sure you dig your heel into the floorboard before pressing the rear brake or you will lock up the rear almost immediately.

 

I dunno about that whole "keep it locked & hit the front brake hard" suggestion. If I had done that last nite when I locked up - and began to have my rear end slide out - that would've caused the bike to go ***-over-tea-kettle.

I was driving back home last night when a sever thunderstorm hit. Decided to pull over for a few & have a smoke instead of getting pummled with the heavy drops - and, only going about 15mph - my rear locked up like it was on ice. Started coming around to the right size - sorta making the bike into a counter-clockwise rotation if you will. Freaked me out - but, didn't panic (too much) and just let OFF of the rear and front brakes (andput a foot downfor stability), adjusted the steering to straighten'er out, & drove on through.Normally, you have to really want to lock my rear up to make it lock - but, I must've hit an oil patch on that wet road or something. It was like ice.