I'll agree that dirt bikes are excellent training for handling emergency road-riding situations. I've spent a little time on them, and would like to get my wife some more time on them (she rides her own bike), for her safety.

It's easy to get freaked out, when someone has only ridden pavement, when a situation other than 100% traction rears its ugly head.

 

Well, I agree...sorta. There are a lot of riders who are new to pavement, but who insist: "Oh, yeah, I used to ride in the dirt all the time". I don't agree that the majority of off road experience transfers to dirt.

However...

This is the absolute most important thing you take from dirt to street, and it's that you don't panic when the *** end starts to swing out. No biggie, btdt, take your foot off the brake and it comes right back in line. Newbs tend to keep the rear brake locked up, and as we know, that's when the really bad stuff happens.

 

Deleted.

 

IdahoHacker, I really liked your explanation of dynamic weight shifting during hard braking. I wonder if you could explain more about letting up if the rear does lock up. It's easy to find what seems to be qualified sources advising us to keep it locked until stopped:

"If the rear wheel is skidding, keep the rear brakes applied and the front tire pointed straight ahead, until you have come to a complete stop. Do not release the rear brake." from Georgia's motorcycle operators manual, and

"If the rear wheel locks up, it's smartest at this point to keep it locked until you're completely stopped." -Pat Hahn, How to ride a Motorcycle p82.

When my rear wheel locked once, (approaching intersection in mist and foolishly in the center of the lane, not a wheel track, and the light just turned) I did let up, and the rear was rather violently thrown the other way, and then I caught it when it came back, and I rode on, with nothing to clean up but my shorts. So I did not do as advised, but then again, I slid through an intersection in the rain, and got lucky.

 

A rolling tire has more traction and wil provide more directional stability than one that is locked up and skidding.

 

I have done this on accident and on purpose...I accidentally did it like you said, panicking and locking and slid down and another time I locked it on a wet road and laid it down to keep from hitting a careless cager who cut me off big time...

 

Thanks for the kind words! Believe it or not, because I'm an avid golfer, and a student of both the teaching and learning of the golf swing, I'm very much aware of how a choice of words, or a certain phrase, can either make something clear, or make it confusing, so I try to be helpful.

There is a very important point about whether or not to keep the rear wheel locked, or to quickly release and re-apply the rear brake, and the decision point is this: How quickly did you realize the rear was skidding?

If you realize it almost immediately, then the right decision is to quickly take your foot off the rear brake and reapply. However, if it took you long enough that by the time you realize what's happening, the rear end of the bike has swung out to the side more than a little bit, then releasing the rear brake could cause a high side crash, so the best decision is to keep it locked up and ride out the skid. It is not physically possible for the rear end of the bike to pass the front, that is it's not possible for the bike to get past a 90 degree angle with respect to the direction you're going, but it's still a scary thing to do.

Unfortunately, there's a dual problem here: Usually, the reason a rider doesn't realize until too late that the back end has skidded out is because he's inexperienced, and an inexperienced rider is not the best candidate to ride out a skid while keeping the bike upright. The ugly truth is that if you're good enough to safely ride out a skid, you're probably good enough to not have gotten yourself in that situation in the first place.

Here's my best advice: Keeping the rear wheel locked up and riding out the skid is never, and I mean NEVER, your first choice. It's the choice you're left with when it's too late to simply release and reapply. I've done the second one quite a few times over the years, and I have never, ever, been in a situation where I rode out a skid until the bike stopped.

Keep in mind, the vast majority of the "advice" in a vehicle code handbook is targeted at beginners.

Obviously, if you lock up the rear wheel at 65 mph, that's a very different situation than locking it up at 25 mph. Best of luck. You'll need it.

 

I wouldn't be helpful if I didn't take advantage of an opportunity to clear up a misunderstanding: There is never, ever, a situation where you stop quicker sliding down the pavement on an engine guard and footpegs than you do staying upright and on the brakes.

Ever.

Always, always, always stay on the brakes. Never lock up the rear and crash on purpose. That's really what happens when you lay it down, you know...it's a crash.

You're much, much better off hitting the side of the cage upright and at 19 mph than you are sliding along the pavement, praying that you're not under the bike, when you hit the side of the car at 41 mph.

Keep the rubber side down. Always.

 

Excellent lessons here! Thank you for providing this info Idaho Hacker.

I've ended up in a rear wheel skid twice now. The first time was in CA at a blind corner in the hills. 2 lane highway and speed limit was around 55 mph. I come around and see my wife and brother in law stopped behind an UPS truck waiting to turn left. I proceeded to lock up the rear and scan for an escape route. There was none. I did let off the brake and proceeded to lock it up again. I rode that one out because there was no where to go. I was a fairly new rider and this was my first long trip.
The second was uneventful as someone cut me off on a busy road and I locked up the rear, saw that the right hand lane was vacant, and let go and throttled on.

I would say the letting off the brake and reapplying (hopefully gentler) seemed "natural" to me. Even when very green as a rider. The panic that made me apply the brake so hard is the same panic that told me to let go.

 

There are three reasons why riders lock up the rear wheel:

1. You've spent your whole life driving a car. When an "oh ****" moment happens, you instantly slam the right foot down to the floor. Tough habit to break.

2. Lack of practice and commitment using the front brake.

3. Lack of practice of maximum effort braking. This is where the front/rear balance skill is developed.

I will tell you, if you've never taken an advanced riders course, and/or you've never practiced maximum effort braking, you won't believe how fast a motorcycle can stop. It's mind-boggling. Especially if the bike has ABS. Here are the key parts of practicing (and executing in real life) maximum effort braking:

At the instant you see the cage/deer/oil in the road ahead, apply BOTH brakes, FIRMLY. Notice I said "apply", not smash, jerk, ******, or grab. We already know what happens if you slam on the rear brake, and, trust me, if you grab the front too hard, before the necessary few milliseconds that it takes for weight to begin to push the front tire down on the pavement, you WILL lock up the front tire, and that could be bad. Very bad.

After that first fraction of a second, squeeze the front brake lever HARD. How hard? Well, that's where the practice part comes in. Yes, it's possible to lock up the front tire, and that's never good. But, I promise you, you can squeeze that front lever a hell of a lot harder than you think you can, and all that will happen is that the bike will stop really, really fast.

At the same time that you're squeezing the front brake really hard, be aware of how hard you're on the rear brake. Clearly, as the vast majority of the weight of the bike shifts forward, the amount of weight remaining on the rear tire starts to dramatically decrease, and the rear tire will lock. So, as you're in this maximum effort braking situation, just reduce the pressure of your right foot a little bit. No, I'm absolutely not saying let off, just be aware that you're not giving it 100% on the right foot, at all. And, if the rear locks, as it frequently does, just let off and right back on.

Summary:

1. Both, firmly, don't jerk. Then:
2. Front HARD, rear not so hard.
3. Practice. Start at 25 mph, work your way up to your comfort level.