I have the softail deluxe and have never come close to locking up that rear brake. Sounds a bit strange to me, like an out of round disc brake. I would have someone do a runout test on the disc to make sure its not bent or warped slightly. Trust me it should not do that unless you are hammering that pedal with a ton of strength. Out of control brakeing will get you into big trouble in a panic stop.

 

I've intentionally locked my rear brake at a safe speed a couple of times just to see how much pressure it takes to do it...I have never locked/slid the rear wheel under normal braking.

 

When I did it I had only been on the bike for about a week, some 200 miles, and was still getting the "feel" of it. A big assed van in front of me locked up his brakes, but he didn't have any brake lights. As big as he was I couldn't see that he was trying to avoid an idiot who had his right tun signal on, but decided to turn left instead and stopped in the middle of the turn blocking everything.

The first indication I had that the van was stopping was the smoke from his rear tires. I locked up the rear and nearly the front with it, but old habits die hard, thank god, and I let off the pressure and took the escape route along side of the van. The car behind me hit the van at nearly 45 mph because he wasn't paying attention and hit his brakes way too late.

Your right out of control brakeing can get you into serious trouble, but thankfully my Custom seems to track very straight with the rear locked up. My old Yamaha is another story all together. It has a big drum rear brake that's very easy to lock up, and when it does it goes everywhere but straight. Good thing it has a really good pair of big disks with a nice sticky tire up front. Otherwise it probably would have dumped my butt off, or killed me a long ago.

 

Let's see I was born in 1949 and 49 from 69 = 20. Holy crap, that means I'm 20 years older than you are.

 

No problems here

 

lol i was born in 1983..............................................

i may be young, but atleast i have good taste in bikes

 

Not only was I born in 1969, but I was born on July 16th, which was the day that the first Apollo mission to the moon, the one with Neal Armstrong on it, was launched! [sm=americanasmiley.gif]

That was "One small step for man, one giant leap for CLAM!" [sm=icon_rofl.gif][sm=icon_rofl.gif][sm=icon_rofl.gif]

Cheers!
[sm=icon_rock.gif][sm=icon_rock.gif][sm=icon_rock.gif]

 

A small detail or maybe a not so small detail to consider:

Keeping in mind how much weight is transfered away from the rear wheel and towards the front wheel in a stop and the reduced traction available to the rear tire....the amount of brake pressure required to lock the rear wheel is reduced.---------------> Stock Nightrain ?

That's what I ride and the drag bars/badlander seat etc offer (To quote HD's marketing)
"A riding position no other production bike dares" ----->

Over the top marketing babble perhaps,but we're leaning more forward,transferring more weight to the front and away from the rear tire....decreasing it's traction a bit more and making it easier to lock up.

For me that means I better learn my bike,a see what input it needs from me to stop smoothly when I need to stop quickly.