Braking While Leaning

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If you have to..... Lean on the inside bar hard to continue countersteering. The bike is going to want to pop up, but if your heavy on the inside bar, you can force the bike to stay down.

Just remember, you have a finite amount of traction. The more you're steering, the less you can brake. Start slowly on a lonely road, or an empty track.
 
The more you are leaned over and the harder you grab the brakes, the more you are going DOWN instead of "popping up"! I wouldn't want to trust ABS to save me because the physics just won't be there. You are overwhelming the available traction in this scenario. Your hardest braking should be done while straight up. If you have a second or the distance to straighten the bike up quickly before braking hard, that's your best bet. Even better, you do all the hard braking BEFORE you lean over. Trail braking would be fine but that's releasing the brakes slowly while leaned over and it's not really an emergency manuever.
 
The salesman boasted I could hard brake on my 1299s while leaning and it wouldn't go down but i never tried it because on my Harley the ABS i have to upright the bike before i apply a fist full of brakes.

I dont believe the salesman but he swears i could do it on my bike :(
 
I would not believe too much my salesman tells me . There is the odd exception but in general they don't know much about the product they sell .
Ask him to take a demo out and demonstrate it .
I have no doubt in some situation the lean angle ABS is going to be a advantage but grip levels will never change so if your tyre is not gripping no amount of ABS is going to save a low side .
It was quite irresponsible on his behalf to even tell you that .
 
And then ? Just remember ABS is a safety feature where you don't need to find the limit until it is needed . Just because a bullet proof vest is meant to stop a bullet you don't go out and get your friends to shoot you in the chest to prove it works .
 
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The fact I am a salesmen has nothing to do with the fact I've done it and it works. I wouldn't recommend novice riders try it obviously because there's a big difference between some random ..... that cant ride 'grabbing a handful' while leant over and a seasoned rider 'grabbing a handful' but it does a great job of limiting the amount of brake applied so you don't lowside and loose the front if you do panic and go for the front.
 
I tried it a while back around 45 degrees it just stood me right up but I dont have the balls to try it any lower. I saw a crazy guy doing it on a 1299 base demo bike at the Snake dragging knees and elbow when Beverley Hills Ducati held their demo day there a couple months back and after talking to him he said the bike just stood him up. He ended up buying an S model he said that feature sold him.

What it felt like to me is the ABS just puts enough pressure on the brakes to slow you down which bring the bike up right instead of locking it up or putting too much pressure on the rotors where the front wont fold underneath you. Even at 45 degrees i still felt like i had to counter steer a little harder to prevent the front from folding. It just gave me a little more time to react.
 
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Using the brakes while leaned over doesn't immediately stand the bike up. If you apply too much brake pressure it can stand up and cause you to run wide. But short of that, trailing the brakes alters the geometry and helps the bike turn.

Yes you can use the brakes while leaned over. I can honestly say there are probably only 3-4 corners in the entire Southeast that I don't trail brake into. Contrary to popular belief, the faster you go (lap times) the MORE you will find yourself using the brakes.

But as far as being leaned over and "grabbing a handful", no. That is never a good idea.

And even when straight up and down, the brakes should never be "grabbed". You can/should go to the brakes quickly, but it should be a smooth, deliberate action where you load up the front tire and then increase brake pressure.

Every heard the phrase "fast guys have slow hands"? If someone describes an aspect of their riding (braking, turn-in, etc) with terms like "grab", "throw", "toss", "jerk", "stab" or anything such as that, they are doing it wrong.
 
Yup, the ABS system on the 1199 is awesome, and on the 1299 with lean angle inputs should be even better. Having said this, those driver aids are not to replace good riding technique, its a safety net to save you when mistakes are made. Anyone who have ridden two wheels for years knows to modulate the brake while leaned only if they have to. Its instinctive. You almost know that if you start squeezing the brake that the wheels already have less grip and don't want to make that low grip situation worse. The moment the wheel slows you then lose the benefit of the rotating force of the wheel in keeping the bike at the angle where it sits and down you go. This has been my experience on bicycles and I don't dare test the same theory on my R. The ABS will save you from a lot but it won't be foolproof if your tire is already approaching the limit of traction and you do something drastic.

YMMV

Ride safe
 
This was on my 1098, so yes, it can be done without ABS, here I get a little too close and have to brake to avoid collision, totally my fault.

[youtube]NJDbb_krE3k[/youtube]
 
The salesman boasted I could hard brake on my 1299s while leaning and it wouldn't go down but i never tried it because on my Harley the ABS i have to upright the bike before i apply a fist full of brakes.

I dont believe the salesman but he swears i could do it on my bike :(

That salesman was referring to the Bosh IMU (inertial measurement unit) which takes into account the lean angle, pitch and yaw positions as well as throttle position and wheel speed and it sends signals to the main ABS unit that THEORETICALLY will keep the tires from slipping even in a turn. Personally I would view this as a back up safety feature and not intentionally push your luck with even the best traction control you still have to have a traction event in the first place. the tires must have adhesion to the road surface. I would imagine if you suddenly hit ice it would tuck the front end.:eek:.

Speedy
 
ALL rider aids really need to be seen as backups, or a safety net. Engaging ABS on the front while leaned over because there's suddenly a deer standing in the middle of the road, that makes sense. Instinct.

In no way do I see cornering ABS ever being better than skilled rider-controlled trail braking. It's possible though that in ten years I'll be eating my words; throttle control is largely electronic. This is most evident in MotoGP, where some riders have crashed spectacularly when their traction control failed - it became evident to me that riders just pin the throttle coming out of a turn and let the electronics sort it out. The glaring examples are Pedrosa, after his rear wheel sensor wire was clipped by Marquez in an aggressive pass, and the career-ending highside of Ben Spies at Indy during free practice, when he pinned the throttle without being aware that the traction control was off.
 
The salesman boasted I could hard brake on my 1299s while leaning and it wouldn't go down but i never tried it because on my Harley the ABS i have to upright the bike before i apply a fist full of brakes.

I dont believe the salesman but he swears i could do it on my bike :(

Maybe he meant trail braking into the corner? My 996 used to do that nicely without any electronics, but grab a handful of brakes lent over, and you wont have a Panigale for long.
 
Since you dont have Obamacare, I would not advise this course of action as brake levers and bits of tires are hard to remove from ones pucker point.
 
Can I grab a fistful of front brakes while leaning or do i have to upright my bike before i apply emergency brake? Not sure if our Panigale could apply emergency brake while leaning or not.

If you ride a Pani and are not trolling I think the best idea is to lean in a corner and grab a fist full of brakes. It will shorten a very steep learning curve dramatically. :D
 
I thought the cornering ABS would be "da s#!t" on the track only to find out that it is way too intrusive and gets in the way of proper trail braking. After 2 sessions I was back to ABS1.

On a damp Sunday morning with a hangover it might save your arse, even then you'd have to be really hamfisted.
 
If you ride a Pani and are not trolling I think the best idea is to lean in a corner and grab a fist full of brakes. It will shorten a very steep learning curve dramatically. :D

Just make sure that particular turn has PLENTY of run off room because you won't be turning for too long. ;)
 
Ok cornering abs on my 1299 didn't work here's what happened:

After I refueled my bike a started riding off and made a blind turn around 5 mph suddenly some fake tough guy in his SUV raced towards me behind a building corner I then panicked and grabbed a fistful.

My bike took a dive towards the pavement but I suddenly let go of the brake and corrected myself to upright my bike saving my ... from eating dust.

I think what saved me was I had target fixation on his truck while my bike took a dive towards the pavement which helped upright my bike when I eased off on the brake lever.
 
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