From: jfriedl@TUBBY.MACH.CS.CMU.EDU (Jeffrey Friedl)
Subject: Re: Thoughs on squishing bananas
Reply-To: jfriedl@cs.cmu.edu
Organization: Omron Corporation / Carnegie Mellon
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 06:02:41 GMT

johnsw@wsuvm1.csc.wsu.edu (William E. Johns) writes:
|> I have also gone out on parking lots, just sorta fooling around to see
|> how fast I could drop the bike's speed from, say, 15 or 20 and by
|> grabbing the brakes locked the front tire so fast it made my heart skip
|> a beat or two.  I guess the urge is to squeeze hard to get a good grab
|> before you lose all speed.  Whatever the reason, I am more prone to lock
|> a front tire at those speeds than at high speeds.

Anyone with reasonable brakes and muscles can lock the wheels up at pretty
much any speed.  Similarly, anyone can dump the bike at just about any
speed.

The *skill* is in applying maximally appropriate brake for the situation
(i.e. don't just grab 'em), and being to do so in an emergency situation
when you're moments from impact to some lady in a station wagon with a
``but-the-road-was-clear-when-I-looked-that-direction-a-moment-ago-before-
  being-distracted-for-only-a-moment-by-the-kids'' look on her face.

Last week some dippy lady wanted to pull out from a side street, across
my lane and into (from my perspective) oncomming traffic.  She looked toward
where I was comming and saw nothing (because I wasn't there).  Then she
looked toward the traffic she wanted to merge and waited for an opening.
By the time it was there, I was just about upon her.  Unfortunatly, she
didn't consider it necessary to check if the road my was was still clear.

As I approached the area, I immediately recognized her as a threat,
along with approaching cars that could potentialil turn across my lane
into the side street (and various other things... I pay attention).
As I got closer, she became my primary threat and I gave her a cross-eyed
stare under a brooded brow (this was to render her car immovable until I
passed).  I must have not done that correctly, 'cause she did pull right in
front of me.  Although knowing I shouldn't, I grabbed the brake, locked the
front tire on the wet pavement, and dropped the bike (and myself).
I think a more skillful rider would have done better, both in planning
an evasive action and executing it.

Luckly
  * I diverted the bike enough (before dropping it) to *just* miss the car.
  * But not so much as to enter the oncoming traffic.
  * The traffic behind me could stop before hitting either of us.
  * I wasn't hurt.
  * She didn't run away like the last person that hit me.
  * Only bike damage was some cracked plasticwork and RR on the clutch
  * A bike-shop friend came to the scene and estimated 100,000 yen to fix.
  * A test ride shows no frame/fork damage.
  * Dippy lady pays me 100,000 yen to forget the whole thing.
  * I decide that I can live with a cracked faring, and pocket the 100,000 yen.

I got my Aerostich last week, so when I go back to Japan, I'll bring it and
practice some braking technique.

This time I sort of made out.  Besides learning just how much I need to
practice emergency braking, I get 100,000 yen for a cracked faring.

Best of all, I only paid 100,000 yen for the bike in the first place (-:
	*jefF*

DoD##4  Honda CBR250R Hurricane
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jeffrey Eric Francis Friedl   jfriedl@cs.cmu.edu -or- jfriedl@omron.co.jp
Omron Corporation, Section RZC, Shimokaiinji, Nagaokakyo Kyoto 617, Japan
Visiting researcher to the Mach Project, Carnegie Mellon University