I am fairly new to riding and have no experience without ABS. I did however have a panic stop last week. I was coming down a grade at about 60 in the Ozarks with rocks on one side and a guard rail on the other and a gravel truck pulled out in front of me. I jumped hard on the brakes and was amazed at how well it stopped. I feel sure it would have slid if not for the ABS. I don't know if it activated or not, but it sure will stop. 2010 Limited is the bike and was bought primarily for the ABS as standard equipment.

 

if it activated, you would know it.....

 

The other thing I see, and Harris touched on it, is that for a lot of folks ABS becomes a crutch. It's NOT a replacement for good braking skills, which comes from regular practice. Yet riders don't practice braking because they are lulled into the belief that they don't have to with ABS. And the laws of physics still apply, meaning just because a bike has ABS, riders can't mash the pedal or grab the brake lever with the bike leaned over in a turn.

I like that he mentioned that if you are constantly deploying the ABS system, you need to work on braking. At police motorschool I saw a demo that stuck with me. They took MY new BMW RT with ABS and put it up against one of those old high milage KZ1000 police bikes. From 40 mph the KZ stopped quicker and shorter than the BMW did with ABS deployed. Of course this was on a clean level surface. On surfaces with less than ideal traction the ABS wins.

ABS is a GREAT feature to have. But keep practicing combination braking anyway.

 

Paniolo's right.

A short summary of my long-winded earlier post:

If you activate ABS it means your braking would have locked that wheel without ABS. Locking a wheel means there was something wrong in your braking technique (either incorrect application or incorrect surface appraisal). ABS is a device that corrects your mistake.

A rider who activates ABS on every ride is about like a pilot that uses his ejector seat on every flight.

Harris
Denver, CO

www.youtube.com/conedown

 

Front Tire ABS = Excellent Idea for Emergency Braking at Highway speed !

Rear Tire ABS = Nearly Useless for Emergency Braking at Highway speed !

Try it yourself

Rear ABS barely stops the bike at Highway speed - It's got me a bit worried - I sure can do better than that ! & I actually have (over the years).

... but the Front ABS is something I'm glad I have, it does better than I can in an emergency ... Front lock up in Not Good in an Emergency - very hard to recover - I know ...

AGAIN - Try it out - get to know your brakes ...

Too bad they're not separate able, separates would be my choice

your real world results may change your mind ...

 

Practice Your braking skills. Great write up on abs..

 

It's not that the ABS makes the rear brake nearly ineffective at highway speed. The rear-brake IS nearly ineffective at highway speed.

The oft-quoted figure that the rear brake can provide 30% of the stopping power is only true if the front brake is not used. Once you introduce any front braking, you take away from the rear, and add it to the front. On an H-D touring motor you can get to about 90/95% front, leaving 5 to 10% for the rear. Obviously on a sport bike, doing a "stoppie" 100% of the braking power is coming from the front brake, regardless of whether the rider is pressing the rear brake pedal or not.

It feels worse with ABS because if you use only the rear brake on a non-ABS motor you will get a locked wheel, and thus almost no weight transfer. ABS is getting a little MORE braking power when the rear is the only brake used, but this initiates some weight transfer. This then results in a lightening of the rear end, and the ABS has to allow more rotation. While this is disconcerting, it's only indicative of how little friction the rear brake has available to it.

This is similar to using the ABS on a poor surface (gravel, grass, etc.) It feels as if the brakes are not working, since there is so little friction available to the brakes. Also, you get less of the "ABS feel" when braking on a surface like that, since some of that feed back is resulting from the friction. Again, ABS is not making it worse, it's just there's not much there to begin with.

Harris
Denver, CO

www.youtube.com/conedown

 

the first time that mine engaged it took me by surprise,as I did not think that I was riding that aggressive, just normal twisties.
Now that I have riden with them more, I now know that the bumpy & un even road conditions and some braking will cause the chatter effect to set in.
Brembo brakes are the very best I have ever used.
Am happy I have them........