BT92 not sticky enough for the casual road rider?

[Lope]

It doesn't take very much to lock the BT92 up on the road... and I'm not a very frequent rider. I work from home, and I have a car too, so I just ride my bike when I feel like it.
So the cost of replacing sticky tyres on my bike 2x as often as harder tyres is actually insignificant to me.
I'd much rather have more grip for straight line stopping ability.
I wanted a BT90 for the front when I got my new tyres, but the stickiest tyre for the front they could give me was Metzler ME33. (I wanted a sticky one for the front for braking ability)

Tonight I was mosying along a road at a very normal mellow speed, and a car kept creeping forward from its stop street, but people often do that there so they can see around that corner.
I assumed they were going to wait (but was prepared for the possibility that they wouldn't)
As I got near the car, they just decided to go. I had to come to a grinding halt, the back wheel fishtailed a bit.

I'm not sure how my braking technique works. I know that in theory you should apply the back and then the front and gradually increase the pressure on both.
I know its important to get the back brake on first so you get weight on the back wheel rather than weight transfer to the front and destabilization.
I think I get the pressure on the back brake really hard first and then start going heavy on the front, that way I can also gauge how hard I can brake on the front?
A few times I've just been like "whoa, wheres the grip on my back wheel?"

[viper_biker]

It would be an extremely rare occassion for me to use the rear brake at all, especially on road riding. I've never raplaced rear brake pads on any of my bikes other than my 125 trailey, but I use that bike a lot and used to lock it up regularly on purpose. Shifting your weight on the bike would give more traction to the rear more than the rear brake will. I sit with my head and shoulders above the screen, push my ass back as far as I can and grab enough brake to slow me down or stop if I have to. I've never had an issue when I ran BT92 with loosing grip, actually, truth be told, it's only the 'Blade that I've ever lost grip properly and that was... erm... an experience.

Was there enough heat in the tyre and were the pressures set properly. How fresh is the suspension etc There are many factors that can cause you to loose traction and more of the time it's rider error (well, it is usually on my part anyway)

[eamer1989]

sounds abit like you got abit trigger happy with the brake lever m8, and as viper says i only use rear brake on very rare occassion of hammering some twistys and slight brake mid corner

BT90's are probs the best tyre you will get some standerd wheels on nc30, but you need heat in them or there no good as i lock up, well lock the rear engine braking in the cold ( thats even with race style blips)

[Lope]

Thats without warming my tyres up I must admit. I usually only warm them up on purpose if I'm going for a blast or inadvertantly by riding for a while.

Viper:
hmm, you're another rider who mostly uses the front... 30% of the bike's braking power is said to be at the back. I find using the back brake definitely calms the suspension too for heavy braking on the front.
Perhaps I'm using the back excessively though.
When its time to do an emergency stop, or slow down etc, I don't f* around. I kill as much speed as possible as quickly as possible. More than necessary. Rather too much than too little :)

I have no idea what condition the suspension is in. It bottoms out in the front quite easily on bumps, but for normal riding I have no complaints. Though I have little experience to compare it to.

Pressures definitely good. I check them pretty often.

[Neosophist]

Thats without warming my tyres up I must admit. I usually only warm them up on purpose if I'm going for a blast or inadvertantly by riding for a while.

Viper:
hmm, you're another rider who mostly uses the front... 30% of the bike's braking power is said to be at the back. I find using the back brake definitely calms the suspension too for heavy braking on the front.
Perhaps I'm using the back excessively though.
When its time to do an emergency stop, or slow down etc, I don't f* around. I kill as much speed as possible as quickly as possible. More than necessary. Rather too much than too little :)

I have no idea what condition the suspension is in. It bottoms out in the front quite easily on bumps, but for normal riding I have no complaints. Though I have little experience to compare it to.

Pressures definitely good. I check them pretty often.

"Be aware that the front brake provides 70 to 100 percent of the stopping power of a motorcycle. With that in mind, you want to practice using more front break than rear. An ideal situation is to have a balance between the front and rear brakes, with about 70% of the emphasis on the front."

Theoretically you want a 70/30 balanace, not that 30% of the power comes from the rear.. you can infact use front brakes only on most bikes.

The only time I EVER use the rear brake is if i'm too hot in a corner or during very slow speed manuvers such as a u-turn or i'm on an incline hill at lights etc. I'm also one who's never had to change rear pads.

I use the BT45 sports touring bias ply tyres on my street NC24 and they never break traction due to hard stopping. I've locked the front up a few times and the rear during emergency stops due to unexpected speed traps / animals / people pulling out from side junctions etc but all the times the bike has locked up the tyre choice wouldn't have helped too much as its down to braking technique..

Let's go over an ideal breaking situation:

1.You apply both brakes (the front and the back) gradually and with almost equal force for the first phase of your braking.
2.The weight will transfer forwards as the front suspension compresses, and your arms bend, the front tire now bites into the pavement.
3.There's now more weight on the front
4.You now let off most - or all - of the rear brake and increase pressure on the front, which now has most or all of the grip. This middle phase of braking can be 100%:0% - if it is less than 85% Front, you probably aren't braking near your bike's limits.
5.The bike slows and the forces you are exerting through the brakes and tires diminish (the energy in the bike is proportional to the square of your speed).
6.The front begins to rise back up on its suspension.
7.You taper off on the front brake - to prevent a slow speed lock up - and increase the rear brake pressure once more. (braking technique courtesy of Hoddy Hodson http://www.msgroup.org/TIP030.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;)
A number of things happen when you start to apply the front brake. First, the shocks will compress as the bike transfers weight to the front. This puts weight and extra traction on the front wheel. At this point, you are doing normal braking. If you continue to squeeze the brake lever, the front brake will get more and more weight on it. Eventually, most of the bike's weight will be on the front wheel. At this point, you are fairly close to threshold braking. If you continue to squeeze, the front wheel will start to complain.

If you feel this, you are at maximum braking. What you are experiencing is caused by the tire locking for fractions of a second then rotating again, and the movement is the tire sliding just a fraction of an inch or so, then regaining its grip, then sliding again. If it didn't regain its grip, it'd go into full lock and bad things would happen.

Just as when driving a car, braking on a slippery surface should be done with a lot more care. Start braking in time because it will take the same amount of weight a lot more time to stop on a surface with less friction than it would on a dry surface with high friction.

I have BT-016 on my ZXR and while thats considered an advanced hypersport radial tyre I can still lock the wheels easy enough with too much brake.

Have a read of that I quoted and practice some hard braking at <30mph speeds. But be careful, even below 30mph it's easy enough to bin the bike

The main difference I notice with BT-016 / BT90/92 tyres over standard sports touring tyres are when your riding on a track or being mental on the street it handles much nicer :-) Especially when cranked over. If your a casual rider standard BT45's should be fine for your bike!

If there not, your going to fast / not leaving more distance... even the best tyres, brakes, suspension and perfect technique isn't going to save you if you don't have enough time / distance to pull off the stop.

[venom51]

The rear brakes are for wheelie control...if you ride a bike that doesn't have enough ass to loft the front wheel then leave it alone.

[Cammo]

I would take the rear brake system completely off my race bike if regulations allowed it...

[ozracer]

I've used all sorts of tyres on my bikes and found that the stickier (or softer) the tyre is, the worse the grip is when the tyre is cold. They need to be up to working temperature to work at their best. That's why race bikes with slicks/sticky tyres need tyre warmers as they just don't work when they are cold.

The last set of tyres I had on my road bike (Ducati) were Michilin Pilot Race Soft which are one of the stickiest road tyres you can get but they were diabolically slippery when they were cold.

I have found the best tyres that work when they are cold are sport touring tyres like the BT45. They are a harder compound that works at lower temperatures, I've never had a drama when blasting through the twisties, and the added bonus is they last longer.

[dx400r]

I have found its very easy to lock up the rear especially if its a well bled setup.

Not enough weight over the rear wheel is my theory. Did it on 90s and 92s. I liked the 92 since even when I didnt know what type of tyre they were when I was on the track they would always let me know when I was near their limit. A gentle slide I could be pretty calm about.

[CMSMJ1]

I would take the rear brake system completely off my race bike if regulations allowed it...

+1

Agree totally - my road bike rear disc is getting rusty as I never use it.. not changed the pads in 5 years and not likely too either.

If you are skidding the back brake you are being a kid. I've sent you the Twist of the Wrist haven't I Lope? Have you read it? get it down you man...you need to get over the bullshizzle and get into thinking about how the bike works.

You pull on the brake - the bike has a weight transfer that gives the front tyre more grip..so you can brake some more. If you brake hard on the rear then the weight is going to transfer off the rear tyre