Your title ABS or DIE...!! it's catchy, but absolute hyperbole and your opinion...

ABS is a great aid to braking..... but it's just that, and aid..... the lack of ABS on any vehicle doesn't mean you are riding on borrowed time or have a death wish...

I have ABS on my newest bike, but I don't feel like I am at death's door when I take a ride on my two bikes that don't have ABS.....

In fact, I've been riding on the road since 1977.... I have far more miles riding without ABS than with ABS... Maybe luck, maybe skill, maybe defensive driving, or a combination of all three, but I'm not dead yet....

Ive said this before.... riding a motorcycle is dangerous, period... everybody has to choose the amount of risk they are willing to accept.... same as; car v bike, helmet v no helmet, ABS v no ABS, etc.

 

no matter how you slice it ABS benefits outweigh any disadvantages for road bikes..too damn many distracted Dotard drivers, uncourteous animals and general road hazards to believe otherwise

 

Generally true, but not absolute....

ABS systems are not all created equal.... someone who has had the Harley ABS lock up and lose their brakes may want to debate benefits out weighing the disadvantages..

Also, while there are certainly more of them today and ABS gives you an edge, we (motorcycle riders) have been dealing with "dotard drivers", "uncourteous animals", and "road hazards" long before ABS...

I'm not anti-ABS... just trying to make the point that while a good to have, you're not facing certain death just because you don't have it....

 

I have not locked up the front recently. I had done it several times when I was riding a 650 years ago, each time I was able to keep the bike from going down, in some cases: barley... Like I say, I am not willing to do a test unless I am prepared for it to fail (I've still got scars).. the risk of damaging my bike is too great. If I had access to a controlled slick surface and outriggers: I would in a second.

 

I understand the system isn't fool proof, but sticking with pros outweigh the cons

 

Don't think the OP stuck their head back in this one, yup, one of those...

 

Braking correctly is mandatory for the fastest stops, even if you have ABS.....

According to David Hough in Proficient Motorcycling......

"The shortest stop requires that you brake to a maximum just short of a full skid, which means you should be braking as hard as possible without activating the ABS. You should consider ABS a safety net, not an automatic brake system, and even ABS riders should learn to apply the brakes just short of a skid. That's doubly important for braking in curves, since ABS won't sense a lateral slideout or loss of traction caused by engine braking on the rear wheel."

 

I am not against ABS. I had it on my Ducati along with traction/wheelie control. I don't like the way Harley linked it though. I am also skeptical of anything that Harley does on the technology side as far as reliability goes.

The thing is with ABS on a motorcycle is that it is really only valuable when you are straight up and down. Unlike a 4 wheeled vehicle a motorcycle leans and those are different circumstances when lateral forces are applied in a turn.

I look at it like a GPS on a trip. You don't have to have it but unfortunately people get dependent on it and when it doesn't work they are lost.

 

I'm not anti abs because the pros outweigh the cons. I had it on my Breakout and Deluxe. Don't have it on my 17 SG and that doesn't bother me


I think saying if you don't have it your dead is dumb and I think faulting people for not having it on their current bikes is even dumber. Anybody in here who's owned multiple Harley's I'm sure owned one or more without ABS and at the time it probably didn't bother you one bit.




And 39 posts in 5yrs. OP is a troll

 

This seems pretty convincing.