ABS Brake Conversion?

[Sadlsor]

Oh yeah, I've seen them.
Also watched a HIGHLY skilled stunt rider hooning around a course at Barbers Vintage Festival, tossing around the 650lb GS Adventure like it was a mountain bike, or a trials motorcycle.
Totally awesome performance, but as my good friend Clint Eastwood reminded me, "A man's GOT to know his limitations."
Wheelies, stoppies, burnouts and sliding tires... I know my limitations in each of those exercises.
Meaning, I ain't a-gonna do none of that. Not on my bikes, and not even on yours.

 

[SMSW]

Meaning, I ain't a-gonna do none of that. Not on my bikes, and not even on yours.

This guy selected a volunteer - the woman who had organized the BMW exhibit at the Western Reserve Historical Museum and had her stand in the middle of the parking lot. He then rode his bike to the far end of the lot, turned around and raced directly at her, doing a stoppie in front of her. He ended up giving her a quick kiss as the bike slowed to a stop on the front wheel before it fell back onto two wheels away from her. This might have been rehearsed, she did not flinch. Dangerous? A banana peel on the ground in front of her would have spelled disaster. Hard way to steal a kiss.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

There is a limited amount of traction in our tires, and you can spend that traction on cornering (swerving in this instance), or on braking in an emergency or quick-stop situation.
Attempting both simultaneously will usually result in a fall, and should always be separate actions.

That is the entire point of ABS, to never exceed the limit of the available traction. It allows a person to apply maximum braking force AND simultaneously maintain steering control because the available traction is not exceeded while performing both actions. Skidding tires don't steer. Is ABS perfect under all possible circumstances? No, just as nothing else is.

I use "emergency" intentionally here, because panic is to be avoided. That implies the rider was unprepared, or caught unaware.

There is no amount of preparation that can mitigate the completely unknown. A person can be prepared to take evasive action but if precisely when that action needs to be taken is impossible to know it can't be planned in advance.

I use the term panic as it is commonly used in reference to an action that is taken with extreme urgency, not one taken with a lack of purpose or control. If the word emergency satisfies that paradigm better so be it. What I know is that when that deer jumped out of the bush four feet in front of me I hammered the brakes as hard as I could and steered away from it at the same time. ABS allowed me to do both of those things at the same time because it prevented the tires from skidding. Skidding results in a lesser level of steering control. I could not prepare for the deers appearance in advance because the timing of its appearance was unknown and very inconsideratly unscheduled, making me unaware of when it was about to grace me with its appearance so yes, I was caught unaware.

 

[sirbike]

That is the entire point of ABS, to never exceed the limit of the available traction. It allows a person to apply maximum braking force AND simultaneously maintain steering control because the available traction is not exceeded while performing both actions. Skidding tires don't steer. Is ABS perfect under all possible circumstances? No, just as nothing else is.

Let’s look at this more fully.

The quoted statement most fully applies to cars and in addition to cars this applies to motorcycles that have a form of abs is specifically stated as cornering abs.

Our STs do not have cornering abs. Therefore the above quoted statement does not fully apply to us. The video posted below does show that we do have some benefit of directional control when our abs is activated.

 

[Andrew Shadow]

Let’s look at this more fully.

The quoted statement most fully applies to cars and in addition to cars this applies to motorcycles that have a form of abs is specifically stated as cornering abs.

Our STs do not have cornering abs. Therefore the above quoted statement does not fully apply to us. The video posted below does show that we do have some benefit of directional control when our abs is activated.

Correct, context is eveything. The scenario that I presented with the deer, the child, and the vise, were all scenarios where the same more or less forward direction of travel is maintained even though hard braking and steering input are required as a combined avoidance maneuver. I was also thinking only of the type of ABS that is found on the ST1100 and the ST1300, which obviously do not have cornering ABS, without having included that little tidbit of information so that did not help in the presentation of these scenarios.

I did purposely chose the word swerve, not turn, when presenting those scenarios but I did not explain well enough what I meant by that so it wasn't very helpful to those reading. My use of the word swerve was intended to convey such a maneuver as would be initiated to move the motorcycle from one lane to the next, or to the shoulder, in order to avoid something that suddenly appears in the travel lane that is being used. In this case one would still continue to move in the same general forward direction. I did not intend to include more extreme maneuvers that alter the forward motion to another direction all together like anything approaching what is presented in that video. My point is that at higher speeds ABS allows a person to make sudden directional changes while braking as hard as they possibly can while at the same time maintaining steering control. Swerving to move the motorcycle from one lane to the next while braking as hard as possible is a maneuver that is made much more likely to be successful because of ABS. Most riders doing so who are not of a very high skill level will likely have a much less pleasant outcome performing these same maneuvers without ABS.

I have had to test the scenarios that I presented on both my ST1100 and my ST1300. In both cases I went back and checked the road surface out of curiosity to see if there were any skid marks. There were not, so the ABS did what it was supposed to do. I am not suggesting that ABS will allow for an actual directional change at high speed without consequence. On a single track vehicle I do not expect ABS to be able to accomplish this. I have never ridden a motorcycle with cornering ABS so I have no idea what its effect would be in a more extreme directional change. I do know one thing for certain- given the choice I would much prefer to never need to find out.