Braking
Hard braking is something you really should practice once a month. I would have to say that if you had one thing you are really good at on a motorcycle, braking should be it! This is my take on braking, think about it and if any of it makes sense to you, try it out!
The old 75/25 or 70/30 brake effectiveness guidline. This is as old as the hills, I think it comes from car dynamics, here is why: reason 1) when you read tests about how much shorter the distance that it took to stop by using both brakes to stop rather than just the front, you find that it is never close to 30%, or even 10% Reason 2) the harder you apply the front brake, the less weight there is on the back tire, and the less weight there is on the back tire the less traction available until the back tire leaves the ground, at which point the braking effectiveness is 100/0, so my conclusion is that the ratio of front brake versus rear brake effectiveness depends entirely on how hard you use your front brake! (but use your rear brake as much as possible, even if it only stops you a foot shorter, that might be all you need!) I would add that in slimy situations, you may not have enough grip from the front tire to lift the back, then the braking with the rear brake will have a bigger payoff. Practice practice practice!
Trail braking. Trail braking is when you are slowly letting off braking (or trailing off braking, get it?) this is usually done when you are still leaning into the corner on entry when you want to scrub off a little speed. The risk comes from the fact that the tire only has so much available traction for turning and braking. If you are using 90% of that traction for turning ,you can only use 10% of that traction for braking. If you use 11% for braking you will start to drift, if you use 15% then you will lose traction from the front tire. Letting off the brake may work, or you may be able to gather it up by rolling the throttle on to take some weight off the front and thus freeing up some traction. If you are really lucky and have knee skids, you might be able to take some weight off by pushing your knee into the pavement, but I wouldn't bet on it!
Do not trail brake over painted lines,cracks, bumps, or in the rain!
Do not downshift while trail braking!
It should take you twice as long to let off the brakes as squeeze them on.
Your squeeze on the lever should be smooth and gradual. Think of it this way; if you close a door on your finger smoothly and gradually, then it won't hurt and you won't be able to slide your finger out. Now stick your finger there and slam the door, not only will it upset something, but you will be able to pull your finger out because will bounce open. Now, try it 10 times, I'll wait.....
How to do hard braking in a straight line:
Squeeze the tank with your legs so that you keep as much weight off the bars as possible, this will give you better control
make sure elbows are bent so you can still steer.
gradually squeeze the lever/depress brake pedal, if you are abrupt you will lock the tire. The idea with the front is to let some weight transfer forward to increase traction, this takes a little bit of time so you won't have maximum traction right away.
Modulate as necessary.
If the tire locks, let off a bit on the brake!
Sounds easy doesn't it?
Setup stuff: If the bike's rear end skips from side to side under hard braking, speed up the rebound damping on the shock, if that doesn't work slow down the compression damping on the fork.If that still doesn't work you may need to change fork springs or the oil level in the fork. Put a zip tie on your male fork tubes to see how much travel you are using under brakes. If you are using too much fork travel you may need to increase preload, increase spring rate, or increase the fork oil level.
Increasing the fork oil level makes the air bubble in the top of the fork smaller, and air compresses, so the less air, the less air compression. The air bibble works like a raising rate spring, the more it compresses the harder it gets to compress.
You can decrease the way bike "stands up" while braking when the bike is leaned over by increasing you mechanical advantage. You do this by changing the rake angle (by sliding the forks up the triple clamps or with different triple clamp offsets). Keep in mind that this change also changes your geometry.
Brake pads. the rating you are looking for if you want to stop in a hurry is HH or HH+. Sintered pads lay a layer of material on the disc. That is why that even though the pads are metallic, they do less damage to the rotors than normal organic type pads. Stock pads are usually made for longevity so they don't grab nearly as well as aftermarket HH pads.
Brake bleeding. Brakes need to be bled from time to time, especially if they are used hard enough to boil the fluid in the calipers. You can buy brake fluid pumper kits and all that stuff, but what I do is put a clear tube from the bleeder nipple into a jar that is 1/3 full of brake fluid already and just open the nipple and start pumping the brake. Having the tubing go into the fluid in the jar makes it so that the fluid goes out but no air goes in because the fluid seals the end of the tube. I use the clear tubing so that I can see when there are no air bubbles coming out and when the new fluid has reached the end.
Hardware. For the street, stainless steel rotors work just fine and are pretty much hassle free. To upgrade your braking system you could just do the brake pads, and they will make the biggest difference. Next, the stock rubber lines flex along their length giving some vagueness and a small reduction in fluid pressure when you pull on the brake lever. You can get rid of this with stainless steel braided lines or teflon brake lines, although I have heard that the teflon lines tend to flex a little bit as they age.And the topping on the cake would a master cylinder banjo fitting like this one (Also called an Airfree):
I have had good results with these.
If you are really looking for killer brakes, go with the ductile iron rotors. They are more porous so they grip better. But there are a few drawbacks: they rust, they have to use ductile iron specific brake bads, and you have to watch for cracks.
Rear brake: With all this talk of the front brake you might think I don't have anything to say about the rear brake, not true! I probably use the rear brake more than most people. I use the rear brake anywhere I feel that the surface of the road might let my front tire slip under heavy braking, anytime I really need to stop in a hurry, or sometimes when I over cook a turn and need to trail brake a bit and don't have any traction left in the front tire (oops!) You can also use your rear brake to lower the bike just before you apply the front brake, this helps resist the nose wheelie tendency a little bit. You can also use the rear brake to limit wheelspin, especially in the rain (this requires a deft touch and can be dangerous, so be careful!)