Modern Vespa

Practice stopping.

The cop said "80% of riders involved in serious crashes don't brake at all or brake with only the back brake"

Two questions:

1) Who are these people?

2) Why do they want to ruin insurance rates for the rest of us?

Re: ABS vs none - none of my half dozen motorcycles and Vespa have ABS. I live in the most densely populated city in my country. Emergency stops are, unfortunately, all too common. I was never too concerned about it, despite knowing (and even making content on) the reports Ryan was citing.... Still nice to hear things will, hopefully, be just fine.

The trouble I had with the reports on ABS vs non ABS accidents, was that they didn't isolate rider experience and instead looked at riders as a whole.

If we put a beginner motorcyclist on a bike with ABS, vs without, we don't know if the results he'll get are the same as if we put an experienced rider to the same test...

Any debate with no one clear winner usually just means we need more/better data...

Seems they are rating only the bikes record not the driver's record/risk these days.
In 2003-2005 I insured a Yamaha R1 full coverage $600 USD a year, now I get quotes for $2700 a year for new 600cc sportbikes, that's with 40 years of motorcycle license and a perfect driving record.

The takeaway from this video is most assuredly not "ZOMG ABS IS BAD DON'T GET A BIKE WITH ABS!1!".

The message is that an experienced rider, ideally under controlled (but maybe even uncontrolled!) conditions can outbreak ABS. This is a well-known fact.

But most riders, even the experienced ones, are still prone to panic braking when that asshat in the SUV turns left in front of them. Maybe not every single time, but enough times to endanger their life and several of their limbs.

ABS really does save lives. And limbs. If you can outbreak it, great. No problem. Hat's off to you. Keep it up. Missed one? Oops. Now you're dead. Sorry.

Could also be age. Isn't there some stat out there about retiree white men dying on motorcycles at a rate that even beats their 20 something year old counterparts?

Perfect storm of a lot of factors leading to that.

And again we don't have enough data to know if these are the guys who never stopped riding overconfident/unlucky/slower to react, orrrrr (probably more likely) the ones who got back into riding after a 30 year hiatus and now have purchased with egos that exceed their skill level.

My aunt's husband is a perfect example. He hasn't gotten hurt but this summer he finally admitted where he's at and said "Why don't you go find me one of those Vespe you ride?"

This is a guy who used to be the guy who buys the fastest production motorcycle available. It's a big step for him to come to terms with where he's at and switch gears and take it down a peg before he would have hurt himself.

You might be getting lumped in with the dudes who are your age riding bikes way beyond their skillset and getting themselves hurt.

Again who are these people and why do they want to ruin insurance rates for the rest of us???

These people won't let their ego go, I tend to call it "small dick syndrome". (No science behind that one).

Presumably a lot of them are in that cemetery you like to hoon around. They aint giving up their secrets though.

Statistically, when an experienced rider with a good skillset makes a mistake, crashes and dies, how would she/he be classified in statistics?

Was she/he really so good she/he thought to be?

Or if she/he was, how many mistakes are allowed to take away skills -credentials? One for a fatal accident? A dozen for just scratches?

Then again, if she/he never had an accident before the fatal one, was she/he really that skillful, or just a chicken who never really dared to push the limits?

Darn these statistics can get complicated...I'll guess what holds is that a dead biker is a dead biker and the less we'll get those the better.

So, to the point of the vid and OP - practice, practice...

Try riding in London during rush hour or gangs of youths with 3ft machete trying to Rob ya bike...

Situational awareness is more important than any safety feature. +25,000 miles of Doordash in 1 1/2 year with only one emergency braking situation. I use turn by turn with ear buds with the cords to help with phone drops and losing the phone during pickups. I use a sticky note for address numbers.
One day I was in 3 lanes of heavy traffic, I looked down at the paper and when I looked up, wow what a rush. I Will never own a phone ram mount. The time to pull over to use the phone IS worth my life.

Was this in/around Orange Park, Florida? Population of 13,000 ish?

Try doing those same 25,000 miles in Toronto, Ontario. Population, 3,000,000. Might get more than one emergency braking situation over here

A pound of feathers is lighter than a pound of lead??????

[quote="adri"]
Was this in/around Orange Park, Florida? Population of 13,000 ish?

While parts of Florida may not be nearly as congested as a city of 3 million I am absolutely positive the idiot per person ratio is at least ten times higher than that of Toronto...just google "Florida man" and let the autofill do the rest and you will see what I mean!

I have to agree with Breaknwind though that situational awareness is the single most important factor in motorcycle/moped/bicycle safety. You have to be ready for the idiots no matter where you are when you are riding.

I prefer to be in control and not rely on the computer to do anything for me and from what I understand my modulating and feathering the controls correctly with the techniques I learned on non ABS vehicles on an ABS equipped vehicle makes it stop much slower and I cannot at this point erase the muscle memory so it actually does me harm by being ABS equipped.

What you are not addressing with this post is that for those of us that do regularly outbrake the ABS the techniques learned painfully over time to commit to muscle memory the optimum braking skills cannot be unlearned.

I cannot help but to modulate and feather the brakes. Even in a regular car that has been equipped with ABS I am at a disadvantage because it is now automatic for me to modulate and feather the brakes.

Years ago when my son was playing hockey we got a book about training for skill drills and coaching. Important to remember that practice does not make perfect rather practice makes permanent.

So if you are practicing a less than optimum technique as a youth it is very hard to unlearn that technique which is why it is so very important for coaches training young players to have them use the correct techniques and form.

Dribbling a hockey puck for example happens much faster than your brain is capable of thinking. The technique has to be "programmed" to the muscles by using the correct form over many hours of repetitive practice.

Once you have written that program to the muscles it feels and seems "automatic" and for someone like myself who has done that with dirt bikes and bicycles from the time they were 4 years old almost impossible to undo.

I cannot tell you how many times after the fact I surprised myself with the reactions that were faster than I could think. I can't help it now totally automatic even when I unexpectedly fall like a gymnast or professional tumbler I land perfectly without having nearly enough time to think about how to do it. The reaction still surprises me at 64 because the muscles and therefore the body knows what to do.

For someone who fits this category the ABS equipped vehicle is much more dangerous.

Bullshit. Go back and watch the video from 5:44 onwards. Threshold breaking on a bike with ABS is almost the same as threshold breaking with no ABS. If you're not locking up the wheels, ABS won't kick in.

The only edge case where ABS might get in the way is if the rider opts to do a stoppy.

FortNine could have tried the test on a wet surface, or with some depris scattered around, or in a slight curve...real conditions, that is

I have only a 'traditional' ABS in my own bike. I rented a bike early this year that had the latest 'cornering ABS'. I rode a lot of twisties, but have to confess that I did not try very hard to test those...with a significant deposit placed at the rental's and all.

A 'bonus' was continuous measurement of the bikes leaning angle. Could not help following the display to see how far I leant this time...and, of course, the novelty wore off within the first half hour of mountain twisties, after which I switched the particular screen off.

Still, it was nice to know there was some extra backup to cover my own mistakes. That said, I think the deposit fee was good enough backup to keep me in a tight leash.

90% of the population think they drive/ride better than 90% of the population.

Glad you asked.

If a pound of anything can weigh six times less on the moon than it does on earth, than it stands to reason a lot of miles in a very congested place and a lot of miles in the boonies might also yield two very different experiences.

I <3 "Florida Man" content lol

Food for thought:

If the idiot per capita ratio is 10x greater in Orange Park, Florida, like you said... but the population of Toronto is 230x greater than that of Orange Park... Guess where you're more likely to run into (or get run into by) an idiot...

90% of the population thinks about driving? I wanna be where you are.

Canadians are indeed lightweights.


https://www.cntraveler.com/stories/2014-04-14/the-laurentide-ice-sheet-maphead

That makes 50% of us.

Well, actually, 49.9%, because our gravity is better than yours.

Interesting read, thanks for sharing that. A pound really does weigh something different depending on where you are.

And now instead of blaming myself for the buffet-induced weight gain when I come back from a vacation in the Caribbean, I'll just tell myself the extra weight is just because I was out of Canada too long

Careful, such a dramatic change in weight distribution might throw the earth off balance, reversing the magnetic field. All those Florida men driving home for Christmas will end up in Canada. And there's no way to stop them because they rely on ABS, which we know doesn't work at all. And Ryan will get eaten by a alligator he mistakes for a friendly exploding eyeball Canadian short horned lizard.

I... will be careful of, that.

Fun fact: Florida is the only place in the world with both crocodiles and alligators.

Next time I see Ryan I'll warn him.

I actually think you'd be quite happy living in Florida. You fit the profile perfectly.

The margin of error for threshold braking is pretty small. There are variable factors at play including road surface, weather, and tire condition. This means finding that threshold can vary greatly for riders, regardless of their experience level.

ABS helps manage that margin of error. A highly skilled rider on familiar equipment in a controlled environment could indeed outperform ABS. But ABS prevents the rider from locking one or both tires that might result in an uncontrolled slide.

Overall, ABS is a good thing for nearly all riders in any conditions.

Yes, road surface and weather are a big factor in how useful ABS is in a motorcycle. The FortNine clip doesn't take that into account much.

Let's also recognize that most of us will lack the experience and practice to deal with emergency situations as well as ABS can.

I agree. For me, situational awareness includes what everyone is doing around you (to the best of your ability) and what anyone might do - and be prepared for it.

It also means not riding faster than you can react to. I lane-split a lot on my commute. I am clearly one of the slowest riders in the "motorcycle lane", and I understand that there are other riders who can safely ride faster than me.

However, I frequently see riders who ride faster than anyone could react to a car suddenly pulling in front of them. They are, in essence, counting on the odds and the attentiveness of drivers to keep them safe.

The odds catch up to you sooner or later and, as far as counting on there not being idiots (or just inattentive drivers) on the road - well, you know.

I love a good debate and I did go back and re-watch the video more carefully to see if I missed something and I did pick up a few things but I think you missed my main point which was centered on the comment at 6:10 in the video that

"the average rider can learn to "instinctually" combine threshold brake". This is what I was referring to as committing to muscle memory a technique or skill similar to dribbling a hockey puck where it becomes automatic, the muscles remember what to do without having time to think. Or at least that's what I think he means by this.

This is a very difficult thing to do when you have already committed to the muscles a different memory or program if you will. Again from the previous post why coaches are taught it is so important to correct technique and form early on so you don't have to unlearn a bad program.

Also nowhere in the video does it state that "threshold braking" is the optimal way to get the shortest braking distance but it does state that threshold braking is a good technique for both ABS and non ABS equipped bikes which I will agree with but it can be better than "threshold braking" and allow me to explain what I mean by that.

I remember a video by Ryan at fortnine (but I can't find the clip) where he discusses how ABS is a disadvantage in the dirt. I think it was in a review of some adventure bike but he talks about how on a slippery surface the ABS is nowhere near optimal braking.

What I mean by optimal braking is the fastest slowing you can possibly achieve which is where I think racing makes a very good example. The best racers are usually the fastest stoppers beginning braking later than everyone else and still making the turn.

This specifically comes into play when block passing. Block passing is how motocrossers pass, they take the line that is not the fastest line around the track but the fastest line to the apex of the turn and then panic brake to slow down just enough to barely make the turn just in front of the rider being passed. If you didn't have the traffic that line around the track would not be the fastest. Not the line you want to use for qualifying but in traffic the line that puts you in the lead.

Now its one thing to be sliding around on the dirt and quite another to do this on the pavement. When Kenny Roberts first got to the Grand Prix circuit in Europe in the late 70's the established racers at the time quipped he wouldn't survive very long riding like he did but he actually revolutionized road racing by incorporating dirt riding techniques and became the first American to win a Grand Prix championship in 1978.

Kenny trained the fastest road racers in the world to ride fast aboard Honda XR100's on an eighth mile dirt oval track and unlike flat track racing they leave the front brakes on and practice using them in this training. This technique is what I regard as the optimal braking. If it wasn't Kenny's team wouldn't be winning races

The whole idea is to get used to being on the edge of adhesion and committing to muscle memory the optimal braking skills which greatly surpass ABS capability.

And while it seems that practicing for "threshold braking" to be committed to muscle memory is a very good skill to have in the quiver and would work in all conditions my point was that if you are in the category of riders that can ride a street bike controllably sliding around like a dirt bike ala King Kenny and have committed that technique to muscle memory you would engage stage three of the ABS frequently and considerably slow your stopping times.

Also I have to wonder how the "threshold braking" technique works on slippery pavement when even though you have practiced and mastered the technique to muscle memory the slippery surface causes stage three of the ABS to engage unexpectedly?

I personally think that to become an advanced rider you need to practice on the dirt on a smaller bike where you can take the fear factor out of performing stunts and getting comfortable with how to react and control the bike in panic situations on the street. If I were going to follow the advice of the video and try to commit a technique to muscle memory for optimal braking it would be different than what the video describes as threshold braking because I am more geared to competitive racing/riding and riding my street bike like a dirt bike while dodging the cars.

Clearly you are firmly in the camp of pro ABS and I am trying to politely point out the differing opinion in this debate as I am anti ABS. I would like to think that we can both agree that situational awareness chief along with practicing a technique to commit to muscle memory a good plan to avoid disaster in panic situations which are sure to arrive on the mean streets but my argument in the debate is that "threshold braking" is not the optimal and that if you seek to be a better than average rider and dedicate practice time to committing a technique to muscle memory you can do better than ABS.

This reminds me of the Dunning-Kruger effect and I think you are absolutely correct. This article is absolutely hilarious describing how it came about that Dunning and Kruger started the study.

https://medium.com/@littlebrown/i-wore-the-juice-the-dunning-kruger-effect-f8ac3299eb1

Interestingly enough there is also the inverse to Dunning-Kruger called imposter syndrome. Apparently there are a whole bunch of people who greatly overestimate their abilities and aren't really very good. And there is another group of people who are really good at things that greatly underestimate their abilities.

I became aware of this when the school that my daughter attended had a seminar on imposter syndrome for the entire student body. It was announced in an email to all of the parents. After discussing it with my daughter at the time I learned that in her estimation everyone at her school suffered from it to a degree which is why they had the seminar required for all the kids.

My daughter attended the Davidson Academy at UNR for 5 years from 2016 to 2020 so eighth through twelfth grades. At the time she applied to this free school on the campus of University of Nevada Reno the entrance requirements were to have a score on a standardized test (IQ) above 99.9 percentile. That means in the top one tenth of the top one percent (or better). No wonder when the kids look around at the group they are in school with they think to themselves "what am I doing here?"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidson_Academy_(Reno,_Nevada)

So when I thought about that after it had sunk in it really bothered me. See I have this very high opinion of myself so I should be based on the very high estimation of my abilities in with the Dunning-Kruger group, pretty much full of poop. But yet in many areas of my life I have excelled. I am almost 65 now and you would think that if I had such high opinions of myself erroneously that it would have become apparent by now that I am really not very good at much of anything. I wonder how many have a very high opinion of themselves and are actually very gifted? I also wonder how many are aware of how inadequate they actually are? Interesting food for thought. It just bothers me because I can't be as good as I think I am right?

My daughter who went to Davidson, the number 4 of 5 kids, says that I am neurodivergent. Apparently those of us that are "gifted" in this way recognize it in each other. I am not sure if I fit in with that group but I definitely think differently than most people.

There are lots of ways to measure ability. For mental proficiency there are tests of various types and for physical there is competition. Racing, X-games, stuff like that. I am very fond of the saying "you don't know what your limits are until you exceed them" and this has been a lifelong mantra for me. I was that kid at a very young age pushing the envelope to see how far I could go with it.

Personally I think that if you have never crashed a two wheeled vehicle you have no idea of exactly what you are capable of, you haven't even come close to finding where your limits are. Conversely if you have had multiple crashes (or whatever word you want to use for laying it down or falling off) that you have a pretty good idea of just where those limits are and in fact the more crashes you have had quite probably the better your awareness of just where those limits are. How is that for neurodivergent thinking? Does it make any sense?

Just to take a poll from the group how many crashes have you experienced on a two wheeled vehicle? I would like to include bicycles, scooters, motorcycles and even the little plank things with a handlebar and two roller blade wheels one at each end that some refer to as a scooter.

And the second part of the poll question how much have you learned from each crash? How much better of a rider did it make you to realize that you did something wrong and that if you had tweaked the maneuver in just such a way you would have pulled it off and not crashed? How many of you figured out from the crash what not to do next time and what to try to pull it off successfully in a similar future circumstance?

Learning from crashes - an interesting question.

I've never seriously competed with a 2-wheeler, but used to practice quite a lot when younger.

I personally can't say that the crashes have been major learning points. Rather practising and finding out when things went better and when worse near the 'sweet spot'.

A not so good example for real life traffic, but just an example: to master our balance, and just for the heck of it, we practiced wheelies. My personal target was to be able to do a wheelie around a 400m running track....which was, of course, illegal also here and somewhat stupid, but hey, we were young.

I did fall of during wheelies in multiple ways and many times during years, but those were either stupid accidents (like finding a too deep pothole etc.) or balance gone totally south...or actually backwards. What enabled me to finally ride the full circuit was to ride and ride and ride at that sweet spot where the bike feels weightless, not slipping forward nor backward and doing tiny adjustment with the throttle and my body...and the more I spent there, at the sweet spot, the better I managed the process and was able to get there even after gear changes.

As said, a stupid example,but I feel that the same thing applies to e.g. breaking. Having done many, many, many succesfull breakings teach more than crashing because of a breaking gone south?

Just my 2 cents, as said, I'm not a professional.

One more thing while we are on the subject of improving riding technique do any of you (I know there are quite a few in here that hail from the greater San Francisco Bay area) remember hearing about the "Barnstormer" series ?

There was an article in City Bike magazine based in San Francisco in the mid nineties I believe about this racing series for amateurs based on the training program that Kenny Roberts used for his team of Grand Prix roadracers.

It was designed for the general public to come and take a class and then get out on the track and practice the techniques with Honda XR100's while the coaches were pointing out the correct form.

I remember reading the article and how they described I believe it was Kevin Schwantz who they said was the fastest on the little bikes but I am going by memory so it may have been someone else but there is one thing I am certain of because of course I was already doing what the coaches were preaching at Barnstormer and that is "elbows up"!

I cannot emphasize enough that when training for aggressive motorcycle riding how important that basic form is to performance. I noticed even when I was much older and riding in traffic in the Bay Area on a big street bike as soon as I would see what looked like possible trouble up ahead with the traffic the elbows would come up thereby creating a slightly more forward weight bias and I would usually downshift one cog to be in a slightly lower gear for anticipated aggressive maneuvering.

Do any of you do that? Do you find yourself ever pulling your elbows up when you anticipate possible evasive action required up ahead?

I am telling you this is the way and if anyone has a copy of the old City Bike free newspaper that was distributed in the greater Bay area from the nineties with the "Barnstormers Racing series article you can read it for yourself and not have to take my word for it.

Not at all stupid in my opinion as long as you weren't endangering anyone other than yourself or doing any damage to the track.

Just from reading your description I can tell you were trying to find your limits and over time by tweaking the technique and form and becoming more comfortable with it you improved.

Clearly an example of by trying something that caused falls in the practice of it you got better at controlling your vehicle and I bet you learned how to fall better as well.

That going over backwards when in the middle of a wheelie is what we call "looping" it or "looped it" the opposite of going over the front end which is "endo", the stoppie gone bad!

Whatever you do if you think you have gone too far backwards do not take your feet off of the footpegs because that is an instant "loop" and most people only make that mistake once!

I don't think you have to be a "professional" in any sense to practice a trick or riding technique that improves performance. I have always been super competitive just because I enjoy it and a bunch of friends riding around are often "play racing" although this usually happens somewhere out of the way of traffic if on the street or on a dirt practice track.

This fits with my theory that the more you try stuff to explore your limits and end up crashing the better skilled rider you become thanks for the input.

Three crashes (that I can recall).

1) The first was when I was ten years old. I was riding my Schwinn Traveler bicycle and turned to wave goodbye to some friends. I then crashed into the rear end of a parked car and went over the handlebars.

2) The second was my first full day of riding a scooter after a 40+ year hiatus. I couldn't manage a turn and went straight into the curb at about 5 mph.

3) The third was a more serious crash seven months later. I was "left-turned" as I rode through an intersection.

What did I learn?

1) Keep your eyes on the road ahead and don't get distracted.

2) Competence is extremely important. I had just taken the basic rider course and thought I knew everything. I discovered that I didn't know how to countersteer. I also learned that my riding gear wasn't adequate - even at 5 mph I got injured and earned my first ambulance ride to the ER. I read Proficient Motorcycling as I recovered.

3) Complacency kills. This crash was 100 percent the driver's fault, but I might have been able to avoid it. I noticed that he was acting strange, just sitting at a green light with plenty of room to turn in front of me. I did slow down as I entered the intersection. I should have changed lanes to the right to allow myself more space and time, but I had ridden through intersections countless times and nothing had happened. My second trip to the ER, this time with more serious injuries. I was wearing much better and more complete gear, without which I might not have survived.

Your post is not a response in a debate, it's nearly a manifesto. If this were a debate, you'd be disqualified for going over the time limit. And to be perfectly honest, I don't have nearly enough patience to pick through the huge pile of irrelevant nonsense you've posted just to point out all the ways that you've managed to completely misunderstand ABS.

So I'll do what you didn't do, and get to the point: ABS will not kick in if you don't lock up the wheel. If you can brake without locking up the wheel, then ABS is irrelevant. The rest of your argument is just self-congratulatory masturbation.

See how concise that was?

Nicely concise Jess.

I've never had anti-lock brakes on any of my scooters but do have it on my Himalayan and on some other motorcycles I've ridden. So far it has never engaged. In part because I'm a rather lethargic rider, in part because I practice panic braking, and in part because of dumb luck that has kept me out of a situation where it's needed.

Relying solely on anti-lock brakes to save my ass seems wrong. And when I'm riding off-road, I turn off the rear antilock so I can skid to a stop if necessary. But even there the front brake has never engaged the antilock.

I can be concise as well.

The likelihood of locking the wheels in a panic stop very high especially in slippery conditions. Better to not have ABS.

There, I disageed concisely without being the slightest bit insulting. How about you try that?

What?

I thought the key point of the video was at 6:10 where Ryan points out the key to taking advantage of the ABS is to practice a technique of "threshold braking" to the point where it becomes committed to muscle memory.

The word he used was "instinctually" which I determine to mean committed to muscle memory or automatic. Is this an incorrect interpretation of the point of the video?

Most of the contents of my post were trying to convey two points.

1. Practicing a technique to commit to muscle memory very difficult to overwrite or unlearn an old one to replace with a new one.

2. And if you are going to take the time to practice to commit to muscle memory a technique using non ABS could lead to superior braking which the video itself suggests, ABS can be out braked.

Why take the time to practice and commit to muscle memory a less than optimum technique or form especially when surface conditions are unpredictable and many older bikes just don't have it.

I apologize for being to wordy. Being called out on that and giving what I had written further consideration I was able to re-write and be more concise which I actually appreciate thank you. My writing skills can use improvement.

What I do not appreciate was what felt like an insult or put down of my attempt to convey an idea. I don't think anyone here wants to make something personal or a gotcha. It goes against the spirit of the forum.