silverclaws
Senior Retro Guru
The Emergency Stop as performed on a bike, when was the last time you did it, have you ever done it ? Is your braking good enough, for what affects motorised transport also affects human powered transport. That dog or child running out in front of you, granted due to speed of travel more time for a reaction, but are your brakes and technique good enough ? If your brakes and technique are sorted, what about the rest of the bike, can it cope with such forces ?
If anyone worries whether their bike can take the forces involved in emergency braking, the question should be should they be riding the thing, so perhaps better to break it now than when you need to brake hard to avoid killing someone.
I tried it recently, went for a worst case scenario, full bore down hill on a road and then slam on the anchors, aye the brakes are good, very good in fact and my technique; progressive braking works, but what did alarm me was watching the front fork, that moved back a lot, scarily a lot, but the bike is fine, it did not break which made me wonder if there are bikes out there that will break under such forces.
Also running knobblies they do not act like road tyres on the road, an early test I had both wheels skidding on the road surface in a forward direction, hence my need for progressive breaking a simple slam on the anchors doesn't work, the natural reaction when something suddenly appears in your track, be it a person, a mut or a child.
These bikes of ours are killer machines for if they strike a person, they can kill very easily I am sure no one wants that on their conscience.
If anyone worries whether their bike can take the forces involved in emergency braking, the question should be should they be riding the thing, so perhaps better to break it now than when you need to brake hard to avoid killing someone.
I tried it recently, went for a worst case scenario, full bore down hill on a road and then slam on the anchors, aye the brakes are good, very good in fact and my technique; progressive braking works, but what did alarm me was watching the front fork, that moved back a lot, scarily a lot, but the bike is fine, it did not break which made me wonder if there are bikes out there that will break under such forces.
Also running knobblies they do not act like road tyres on the road, an early test I had both wheels skidding on the road surface in a forward direction, hence my need for progressive breaking a simple slam on the anchors doesn't work, the natural reaction when something suddenly appears in your track, be it a person, a mut or a child.
These bikes of ours are killer machines for if they strike a person, they can kill very easily I am sure no one wants that on their conscience.
