Braking is more about skill than it is about tire. Braking is a learned skill, not a gift we are born with. Stopping distance varies greatly between riders on the same bike and tires. Stopping distance for a professional rider will be far less than mere mortals such as ourselves will be able to accomplish. A sport bike tire will take about 1G of force before it gives up traction. You can use that 1 G for braking or lateral forces created by lean angle but you can't use 1 G of both. So we must/should learn to manage traction in order to avoid un-necessary get offs. I hope we both can agree that an increase in traction will decrease our chances of loosing traction in any given situation such as yours.
Crashes are almost always a result of errors created by the rider. Bikes don't crash, riders crash. The infamous Matt MLadin said it very well when a reporter ask why he crashed. Matt replies with "Well, apparently I ran out of talent just when I needed it most"! There is a lot of wisdom in that statement.
Most "normal" people will be able to stop a bike easily in the 128-150 ft range. if you are riding your motorcycle and a deer jumps out into the road and stops 200 feet in front of you...you are going to be able to stop as most people would. A deer jumping out in front of you at 50 foot will result in you hitting the deer...I don't care how experienced you are at riding.
If I was at a track day and washed out, I would whole heartedly agree with you 100% as it would be a track, the bike, and my skills or talent. However at the track everything is a controlled environment. You wipe out it is because of your talent or over confidence. A car pulling out in front of a motorcyclist and causing a wreck on a straight road is lack of talent on the car driver's part. Exactly where does having a car pull out in front of you giving you little to no reaction time considered "lack" of talent. I question the logic.
you contradict yourself in your first statement about the tire has little effect on braking distance. I'll give you an idea of what I am talking about as far as reaction time and stopping distance. When I drove 18 wheelers i used a 7 second following distance at 65 mph, this gave me a 1/4 mile space or better in front of my truck when it was dry, when it was raining or snowing that distance went to 15-20 seconds of a following distance. A tractor trailer running 55 mph takes 2-2 1/2 football fields, over 240 yds or over 720 feet on dry pavement. According to you, if something were to pull out in front of me within 100 feet of my truck and I hit it, then it is because my lack of skill...not because the vehicle is incapable of stopping in the distance. By the way an 18 wheeler weighing 80,000lbs going up hill can break traction on snow covered roads. This all pertains to the same tire with the same traction capabilities on different road surfaces.
Now lets get back to the traction part of things...while certain tires may provide a ever so slight advantage in "actual traction" to the road surface, other factors come into play. Pavement wet or dry, was the surface smooth or textured, bumps, was their any oils on the road (left from cars with oil leaks) there are many factors that could come into play. While you may say brand X may give better traction than brand Y. You fail to recognize that if you have no reaction time or not much time to react...then it doesn't matter how much talent you have, you will still hit it....because if it take 128 feet to stop a motorcycle at 45 mph then a car pulls out 50 feet or so in front of you that leaves a 78 foot deficit for stopping.
We can debate this all day but 3 facts remain.
The 1st fact is you were not there...so you can only make assumptions and guesses as to what happenedand why it happened. You don't know me personally and therefore you also don't know my skill level or so called talent.
The 2nd fact, even if I have no "talent" whatsoever riding a motorcycle I stand with my decision to swerve right to miss the car keeping in my lane and avoiding the car as best as possible. While it pains me that the bike and I went down (according to you because of lack of talent, according to me because of little to no reaction time/uncontrollable circumstances), I stand by my decision to try to avoid the car. which brings me to the last fact.
Fact 3, I am still alive, be it by skill,talent, luck, GRACE OF GOD...The lady driver got a ticket (as the cop felt she lacked skill or talent), my bike is going to be repaired via her insurance (as they feel she lacked talent/skill. If I had to do this scenario all over again I would rather have leather bottoms on, but I would not change How I reacted to the situation...as it probably had some impact on the fact that I am still here. The bike isn't total lost, only cosmetic and I could walk away and ride the motorcycle away.
By the way what tires are you running that you are able to stop a motorcycle in 1/3 the distance that it takes others to stop, I didn't catch the name of them.
It's all good Tufbusa, I'm just trying to figure out why you keep pulling the talent card out, I could understand it if I was in a single vehicle accident with no other contributing factors.
you have a great day
, be safe and I hope you never have to be in the situation I was in.
