This won't work safely without abs for the back wheel. The reason is that with the same braking force applied to both wheels, the rear brake will lock up and lose traction well before the front, so that in any significant braking situation you will always be dealing with a locked rear, which means your rear tire is suddenly going to want to go to the front of the bike because the front tire is producing more drag by not losing traction.
That's a bad thing.
What about when you are going to t-bone a car and you need to lock up rear to lay down the bike? I have used this procedure once and it did save my life from an old blue-hair that ran a red light. Good luck what ever you decide. Tony C
I'm one of the people who has actually been in this situation, and there was no time to lay the bike down. There was time for me to process the dude's brake lights going out, and see his intent (he was looking away from me, at a driver that had the right of way but wasn't moving)
That's part of this though - I was already watching him because HE was the primary threat in my environment. Identify, assess, respond. Like Kieth Code says, always be looking at the place you'll be in 5 seconds, not where you are now. Where you are now is safe, where you'll be is where the danger could be.
I was doing 40, heading into the intersection. He pulled out and then saw me and braked, directly in my line of travel. There was no way to avoid a collision.
I layed on both brakes as much as I could without losing traction, and then as I got closer, I popped the front brake and leaned forward on the grips to throw the bike towards a stoppie and as I hit the guy's car I lept free of the bike and vaulted over the handgrips.
The bike smashed into the car, flattening the front wheel, bending the forks 45 degrees, and snapping off the triple tree. I flew in an arc over the bars with my hands planted, tucked my head under and landed flat on the hood moving about 30 miles per hour.
I bounced off the hood, flew back up into the air and came down again on my feet and tried my best to roll into the energy - not much you can do at that speed.
I got up after the accident, and I was pretty knocked up. My hands hurt from the shock, my back ached but nothing was broken. My helmet was trashed and I'd taken off a lot of leather from my Vanson pants and jacket. I wore my rivited held gloves down to my palms and I'd burned my skin from the rivets getting hot sliding on the pavement, but I was intact.
As I was walking back to the bike an eyewitness came up to me and said that it was incredible. He said that was some kind of batman stunt shit that I pulled.
All I could say was that I was fully in the moment. I spent every bit of my nickel of attention on every element of the task at hand. I remember everything in slow motion, as if it took minutes instead of seconds to occur.
I will also tell you that I could not possibly have survived that incident without fully knowing exactly what my bike would do at the edge of traction. I couldn't have done it without a front brake, I couldn't have done it with bad tires. I couldn't have done it without wearing a full suit of expensive leathers, a good shoei full helmet and the best racing style deerskin, kevlar and metal rivet gloves I could find.
I also couldn't have done it without a fair amount of luck, but that's what it takes. You get your chance, but you need to be ready for it.
I'll never tell anyone not to take stupid chances, but I damn sure want them to know ahead of time when they suggest something like this what the consequences could be. The inability to act or react in a life or death situation.
* Keith Code -
a twist of the wrist
I feel obligated to mention that this dude pulled out from a stop sign and encroached on my right of way. When the cop showed up, the guy pulled the cop aside and was talking and joking with him, while I was limping around waiting for the ambulance to arrive. By the time the cop came over to me, he was convinced I'd committed some sort of crime.
Turns out the other driver was a lawyer, and handed the cop all sorts of bullshit while I was half knocked out, so that the cop had the balls to write me at fault, even though there was nothing justifying it.
Sucks, but at least I walked away.
Ask any MSF instructor.
