I’m not saying that its ok for a heavy bike to have inferior brakes, only that harleys tend to have braking characteristics similar to other bikes in their weight range, and therefore shouldnt be singled out. I don’t think that harleys have inferior brakes, but I cant find stopping distance tests online anywhere. The reviews I have read where they are compared to other bikes in thier class say they are similar, but give no hard facts.
I havent seen any evidence to the contrary therefore, so I am not sticking to an irrational belief.
Some cops do ride BMW’s over here, but for the most part they need something confortable and reliable, with decent manuverability. Chases arent something most motorcycle cops get into, they leave that to the cars. The big Harleys fit that bill pretty well. Belt drive, btw is every bit as low maintenance as shaft drive. Most harley cop bikes make it through their entire tour of duty on the belt they came from the factory with…zero maintenance.
I’m with you on the belt drive, and I’ve stated before that I, too, found tests stating that Harley brakes were on par with the brakes on competing cruisers. My comments on your last post were aimed at your initial remark that I shouldn’t compare stopping a Seca II to stopping a much heavier 'Glide. I said that I bloody wel COULD compare them, because every bike needs to be able to make a decent emergency stop. To back this up, I presented a test in which a Honda 929R (sport bike, very light) and a Honda Valkyrie (behemoth cruiser, twice the weight) stopped in exactly the same distance from 100 km/h, therefore proving my point that a cruiser does not necessarily needs more distance to stop just becuase it’s a heavy. Some cruisers might need more room because they have shitty brakes - but long stopping distances have nothing to do with the weight of a bike.
Heres the deal. Heres a real world test I can personally attest to. If you take a big tour bike, like a Harley FLH and strip off all the heavy tour stuff, its stopping distance will decrease because of the weight. Put it back on, it takes longer to stop.
Given the same size brake rotors, same calipers, and same master cylinders, an 800 pound tour bike and your seca are going to have radically differant stopping distances.
Now, in the example you posted, maybe the Valkyrie has exceptional brakes. Maybe honda spent a lot of money and put six piston brake calipers on both sides of both wheels. I don’t know, I honestly havent had any experiance with that bike so I dont know what it brakes like. Maybe the rider of the sport bike didn’t know what he was doing. It’s not a very scientific comparison, and we still dont know how eithe of them compare to say, a road king.
But you can put cheap single disk brakes on a light bike like yours, and still have it stop better than the dual disk system on a tourglide. Its possible to make that tourglide stop faster, but its possible to make every other bike in class stop faster with after market brakes. I’m just saying compare stock bikes to stock bikes in the same class.
No argument there. I shouldn’t have said weight has nothing to do with long stopping distances, that was poorly phrased. Like I said, 27 things at the same time.
It’s a factor, all right. What I objected to is you using weight as an excuse for poor brake performance: if the bike is heavier, it needs stronger brakes to stop within the same distance as a lighter bike. Which is why I came up with…
My guess is that both brake better, but I might be wrong.
The Valkyrie and the 929R were both stock (the use of the word “custom” seems to indicate cruiser here rather than “customised”, bear in mind it’s a French source). The riders were professionals, and they used the means of 84 stops on the Valkyrie and 214 on the 929R. Sounds pretty scientific to me. Point stands: it’s entirely possible to make a cruiser stop as fast as a lightweight races, and indeed manufacturers make sure they do.
Sure thing. And I’m saying every bike ought to have a safe stopping distance, no matter how much it weighs. If a 'Glide is heavier than a Ducati, it will need stronger brakes to stop in the same distance. If the manufacturer doesn’t fit proportionally stronger brakes, the 'Glide is per definition unsafer than the Ducati in the brakes department.
I’m not using weight as an excuse for poor brake performance. I believe that harleys have adequate brakes from the factory. That doesnt mean that there arent bikes and aftermarket setups that perform better. Adequate, not poor, not exceptional.
Yes its possible. Yes, it would be better if all big cruising and touring bikes came with six piston four disk brake setup, but its not likely to happen. I’m just saying that Harley compares favorably with other bikes in its weight range, and nothing more.
Ok, this is where we run into subjective territory. What is a safe stopping distance? Yes, a Ducati is more than likely safer in stopping ability, but that does not by extension make the Harley unsafe…just not as safe.
I personally feel safe on a modern harley…I feel safe on my harley and its got shit for brakes…Hell…I once drove a a good 60 miles round trip to a dopefest on my 74 FLH with two blown master cylinders…essentially no brakes…in the rain…(I was late, so I didn’t wanna turn around and go back home)
an aside (not that this has anything to do with modern riding)…IN the owners manual for an old AJS I was working on, it recomended that you do not use the brakes except in times of emergency…that you were to downshift to slow down and stop.
Reason Goldwingers don’t wave back, they all have inter bike coms(vitually all those I’ve seen) and if you haven’t got one then they can’t say Hello to you on it, and the Goldwinger has so many knobs and button on his machine that they simply don’t have enough spare hands to wave around.
Always wanted to try one out but never got around to it, always wanted to try out a big Duke too.
Other bikes that might be a giggle, Honda CR500 2 stroke trailie insanity, Honda CBX 1000 six cylinders of excess, RGV 500 fragile 2stroke lunacy, Boss Hoss - well you just would have to wouldn’t you.
I’d say we’ve cleared “subjective territory” and are now solidly in the middle of “Semantics County”.
Your call, but I wouldn’t ride a bike that had essentially no brakes. Having said that, sure, it’s possible one feels safe on a Harley. I never felt in danger for the two days that I rented the Sportster 883, but I DID change my riding style. Kept more distance, perhaps ridiculously so, because the brakes didn’t give me confidence. As for what precisely a safe braking distance is - well, who’s to say. Ideally it’s less than the distance between you and the object that prompted you to hit the brakes in the first place.
We’ve seen the numbers for those two Hondas: both break in less than 42 meters from 100 km/h. Now, if a bike needed 45 or 46 meters, that wouldn’t phase me. If it needs 70, I’d definitely be worried. Where the exact cut-off distance is, I don’t know, but it’s possible some modern bikes would feel scary to me. Not necessarily Harleys alone.
Interesting… I guess that stems from the drum brakes era. Discs are difficult to kill by overheating, although fading can occur if you push the limits a little too hard, and too repetitively. Then again, if you’re riding so hard so as to induce fading, you should be on a track in the first place.
Try engine breaking on a Ducati. Nice way to get your balls bruised.
Finally, I got this in the mail a few years ago. It seems to fit in here.
Although this is your personal experience, surely you cannot be saying that wearing denim jeans is a better option, or even a viable option than wearing good leather.
Given that Harley brakes take some getting used to, and that Harley stopping is not on a par with most Japanese machines, the Harley rider must look and plan a long way ahead and even so this will not protect when some knucklehead pulls out as short notice, especially that the handling of a Harley is not likley to be able to take a swift swerve of avoiding action.
Maybe you butt is way tougher than mine, but I’ll stick to decent protection, though ultimately there are situations when even this will not be enough.
If your attitude to personal protection is typical of the experienced Harley rider (aren’t you Catbiker on another MB?), then you must surely see that riders who do take sensible precautions will look and wonder.
…or put another way, show me an advanced Bike Training instructor who will say that denim jeans are adequate protection.
Selecting a crash hat is the riders choice, but over in the UK you will rarely see any rider on the road other than a Harley(or custom bike style rider) wearing anything other than a full face lid.
What it does illustrate to me is that the Harley rider seems to consider the image more important than safety, poor handling, poor brakes and poor personal protection.
Says it all about Harleys really, image, image image, though in fairness no other bike does image better than Harley and that’s true enough.
In life, we choose our happiness. We seek it out wherever we can. However, not many of us are aware that we also choose our sadness too. Now this takes a bit of work to get your head around sometimes, but when you get it, life becomes a lot easier I find.
In short Bandanaman, you sought out this thread - you sought the attention and most importantly of all, you consciously chose to empower Coldfire’s remarks to have more influence over you than they rightfully deserved. Who cares if Coldfire’s right? Or if you’re right? I mean really? It’s only an opinion, and it matters naught in the great scheme of things, doesn’t it? And yet, nonethtless, you went out of your way to start a thread about how you had allowed some Dutch dude’s opinion on the other side of the Atlantic about a fucking motorbike to get under your skin and then fuck with your head. Honestly… that’s lame. That’s called going out of your way to find something to be pissed off about.
So as I said, we seek our happiness as well as our sadness in life - and we do it all the time with almost every decision we make. And to the do the latter is just plain fucking dumb because almost all of our problems in life are of our own making I find. So… if the mere words on a friggin computer screen are doing your head in? Simply because somebody slagged your beloved Harley Davidson? That’s a hint that you need to step away from the SDMB for a while I reckon.
Now as for this?
That simply speaks for itself, really, doesn’t it? A veritable Himalayan Peak in the gene pool is what I think we’ve stumbled across here…
Well…I shouldnt have, but I really wanted to make it to that dopefest. One of the dumber things I’ve done on a motorcycle to date, but I survived…
Thats really my point. Saying “I don’t feel safe with the braking on most big bikes on the market” is a lot differant than saying “Harleys all have unsafe brakes”.
Interesting… I guess that stems from the drum brakes era. Discs are difficult to kill by overheating, although fading can occur if you push the limits a little too hard, and too repetitively. Then again, if you’re riding so hard so as to induce fading, you should be on a track in the first place.
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Yeah, definatly from the drum brakes era…around the 1930’s or so.
Well, hang on. I’m not going to let you get away that easily.
I didn’t say I felt unsafe braking on all big bikes. In fact, I’ve riden a BMW R1150 RT, which weighs close to 300 kilograms, making it fairly heavy in my book. It was the best braking bike I’ve ever been on. And let’s face it: a Sportster is NOT a heavy bike. I just checked, and the stock one weighs 235 kilograms, which is heavy compared to a more “plastic” bike the same size, but still only 30 kg’s more than my own bike.
I’m saying that for most people wearing full leathers in 120 degree heat every day is not practical, or even possible for someone like me whom that don’t even make full leathers in my size. I do have a set of chaps I wear in bad weather, and I had to have those custom made. On the local 59 club web site we had this discussion the other day…Your safer wearing Jeans and a T shirt in hot weather than you are in full leathers and heat exhaustion. The heat will dull your senses making you more likely to fall down in the first place.
Well, given that thats flat out fucking lie…HARLEYS DO NOT HAVE WORSE BRAKES THAN JAPANESE BIKES, and havent for 20 years. And they swerve quite nicely compared to other bikes in their range, includeing Japanese bikes.
NO…I’m am bdgr or badger on every board I have been on since 1983. And see, heres where the ignorance and bigotry comes in, and why people like you who talk out their ass piss me off.
My attitude towards personal protection stems from being an every day bike rider. It was my attitude when I was riding BSA, it was attitude when I rode Guzzi, it was attutde when I road BMW, and yes, I now ride vintage harley, and yes I still think dressing upin full leathers to ride to work, then needing a shower when you get there, or being so inattentive because of the heat exhaustiion you are more likely to get in a wreck is stupid.
And guess what? Its th attitude of nearly every BMW, Guzzi, norton, honda, Kawasaki, Ural, Ducati, or generally every motorcyce rider i have known and ridden with over the last 20 years or so…Only the week end warrior wanna be racer types wear full leathers in 120 degree heat.
Glad we have people with more sense over here
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What it does illustrate to me is that the Harley rider seems to consider the image more important than safety, poor handling, poor brakes and poor personal protection.
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Bigotry again raises its ugly head.
Well, says it about why you shouldnt make bigoted statements about people you know on a public message board. I ride probably the ugliest stock 74 FLH in existance. I do so usually wearing a hawaiian shirt, and blundstone boots. Image means nothing at all to me, and never really has.
Well…BMW is an exception. Their Anti-lock brake system is above par. A sportster is a sporster, and the low end sporsters may very well have crappy brakes…I honestly havent spent a lot of time with them. I am not saying anything against sportsters, I know plenty of people who have and love them, although admittedly few who have the low end ones. But there is a big differance between a sportster and a tourglide or a softtail.
That’s cause you’re going 10 MPH, cruiser boy. Speed up to cool off!
Just kidding.
I’ll sometimes wear jeans when I’m riding. But only when I know I won’t be venturing out of town, so speeds will remain low. Typically, if I ride my bike to work, I’ll wear jeans, but make sure to avoid the highway and take the slower back roads. Typically, I don’t exceed 70 km/h on such rides. But when I know I’ll be outside of town, or worse, on highways, it’s full leathers all the way, and I don’t give a shit how hot it is. It honestly only bothers me in the summer, when it’s 30+ degrees Celcius, and there’s a lot of stand-still traffic. But as long as I’m moving, I’m getting enough cooling. I don’t feel “duller” riding in the heat than I do in the cold.
I sure as hell wouldn’t dare to go out on a highway wearing a t-shirt. Some of these idiots I see don’t even wear gloves. Yeah, they’re hot in summer, but boy, have you ever SEEN road rash on a pair of hands that tried to instinctively stop a 120 km/h fall? Ye Gads.
Oh, 30 celcius, on the highway I might wear a leather jacket…it wouldnt be that bad. Around 48 celcius its just silly.
I’ve laid a bike down at 80 Kph plus, in jeans and slid down the highway with a bsa spitfire on top of me…Didnt even wear through the jeans. I was wearing gloves and a leather jacket at the time.
I agree about gloves, and I usually wear fingerless gloves in the summer, but I will admit I often go without…especailly on short trips. I shouldnt…
