Motorcycle Braking Tips by Indranil

As per my experience what I believe is that there could be 3 possibilities of braking:

  • In normal conditions i.e. applying brakes on a straight road.
  • Applying brakes during a turn.
  • Applying a sudden brake to prevent an accident (may be in a straight road or while taking a turn)

Nowadays most of the bikes are equipped with disc brakes in the front; hence it’s quite obvious that you need to apply less effort in the front being hydraulic brake and more in the rear being drum brake

If you press the front disc brake too hard, then it may skid the bike or it may convert into a stoppie and land you on the ground touching your head first, and it could cause a very serious accident.

If you press the rear brake too hard then also your bike may skid, hence it could cause a serious accident too.

With respect to above 3 conditions (a, b, c), for efficient braking you need to apply both the brakes together. Now when applying both the brakes simultaneously, how much effort you need to put in applying the front brake (in case of disc) and how much effort is required in the rear one (drum brake), so that both your wheels get appropriate braking power from your brakes without skidding the bike, that you will learn through experience.

Downshifting During Braking

Every gear has its own speed range; hence you need to shift the gears accordingly depending on your speed. For Example in case of a 150 CC bike, 1st gear is meant to drive in a speed range of 0-35 Km/h.

Suppose you are driving at 110 Km/h and you need to come to a standstill position, then if you downshift your gears while applying brakes, just keep in your mind at what speed you are downshifting to which gear. While applying brake from 110 Km/h if you have downshifted your bike to 2nd gear from 5th and if your bike is still running at 90 Km/h then it could damage your gears badly although it would give you a good retardation but this is not the proper braking technique.

Hence I suggest, while braking from 110 km/h to standstill, first you should leave the throttle & apply brakes without pressing the clutch (as in released clutch position the bike is engaged to the engine and it also gives a bit of retardation to the bike while braking) then let your bike come to a speed of 50-40 Km/h then press the clutch and then you may downshift the gears to 5th -4th -3rd – 2nd with ease.

Allowing the bike to retard in a clutch released position until it stops completely at a point is not a good idea, as it will wobble the bike at lower speeds if engaged in gear and the engine will also turn off automatically.

– Indranil Maity