Tips for Safety for Motorcycle Riders #7

Active safety: ABS

And what about ABS?

No locked wheels
The idea of ABS is that you are ensured not to get a locked wheel during braking.
It seems ideal, but there are disadvantages as well:

Sometimes disadvantages
- Some tests show that ABS performs better, but some tests have other results, and the experience of some people is also different: some ABSses engage before the point of maximum braking.

- When the surface is bumpy, ABS will sometimes engage too soon: it gets disturbed. That means scary moments on roads with bad surfaces (in the mountains for instance), because you suddenly have no brakes.

- In loose gravel, sand, grass, or any of such surfaces, ABS prevents you from braking at all. You can switch off the ABS of a BMW GS, but you have to stop, switch off the contact, and switch it on again. On many other motorcycles, you can't switch off ABS at all.

- Some ABSses have stoppie-intelligence. When they notice that the rear wheel gets too light, the ABS looses the front brake. That means that your front wheel suddenly seems to slide forward while it wasn't near locking at all. Especially going down in the mountains, braking before a corner, it happens regularly, and I can tell, from personal experience, that it feels terrible.

- Most people have a tendency to increase their speed (especially in rainy conditions) when they have ABS (the "I do have ABS, don't I?"-syndrome).

Deciding
You will have to think about how often you find yourself in a situation where the ABS is in your way, and how often you find yourself in a situation where it could save you.

It also depends on how you use your motorcycle: if you often go "into the wild", you might be worse off with ABS.

Always practise
When you choose ABS, don't forget to practise braking (it's very easy to forget practising then!). When you can switch it off, also practise with the ABS switched off.

And never forget that ABS only has advantages for your safety when you ride as though you don't have it!
If you have this tendency of increasing your speed, it only succeeds in diminishing your safety!

Site: lazymotorbike.eu