Category: Assessment

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79. Working to gain a BTEC Part Two

The second half of a two-parter on getting a qualification in rider coaching.

Working to gain a BTEC Part Two

Working towards a BTEC – part 2
A couple of weeks before the second practical assessment part of the BTEC, Malc dropped a couple of training scenarios over in an email, and asked for a draft lesson plan for each. My initial view of this was that it would only take a minute or two to knock up the required plan, as both scenarios were something I have dealt with dozens of times in real courses. For example, when I looked at the first scenario (“fairly new rider having problems with bends and following partner”), I thought “easy enough, I’ve run this one myself several times”. So of course, because of the pressure of work through August and September, I left everything to the last minute.

When I sat down to finish the assignment, my initial thoughts ran along the lines of:

“Don’t take anything for granted and go for a ride along a road with some nice bends. The rest of the lesson would be based on what I detect as a problem from that point on. I really wouldn’t work to much of a plan because it’s ‘problem solving’, not training to a syllabus or set plan”.

Having submitted that in an expanded format as a draft for the assignment, another email from Malc bounced back with some helpful hints:

“But would you arrive ‘cold’? No ideas of what to expect i.e. what clues are iin the information provided? Would you bring along anything besides yourself & your bike? You’ve already started to plan, like it or not, by choosing a road with ‘nice’ bends! And what does your experience tell you to expect? Look back at the clues in the scenario again.”

I began to see what Malcolm was driving at… several hours and several balled-up printouts later, I had fleshed out that bald statement and presented my idea of a lesson plan.

Back came the reply. I was close, but no cigar. It wasn’t in ‘lesson plan’ format.

Err. OK, what was it about my lesson plan that wasn’t a lesson plan? I spent a few evenings on the internet discovering how to structure my plan into the kind now used by teachers.

I sent off a second draft. Almost there. A couple of constructive criticisms, another evening of work and one final rehash and I had it in shape – Malc passed it.

As I just hinted, any teacher would be instantly familiar with the format. Every activity is clearly explained with the aims of the exercise, the time to be taken, the results to be achieved and a way to assess the results. Also listed are the resources required, right down to pen and paper.

Now you might well argue in ‘real life’ we run sessions in a much more flexible manner, because we have the knowledge, experience and skill to do adapt quickly to a ‘real person’ when they meet us for training. That may well be true, but by formatting the planning for a session we do gain benefits:

  • we can identify and work on specific objectives to ensure that learning takes place

  • our knowledge, experience and planning skills are clearly demonstrated not only to any external assessor, but also to the trainee, and heaven forbid, anyone looking at the course after the event with a view to preparing a liability claim

  • having identified the key information using the format will make planning (and training) more accessible

Where there is a clear benefit is for a relatively inexperienced instructor. He or she will have a much better chance of doing a decent job following a carefully prepared plan. It took a long time but ultimately the DVSA moved in this direction with CBT and DAS training just a few years back.

Nevertheless, I do think there are limitations to the use of lesson plans.

One thing that we can be sure of is that when we encounter a trainee in person, we may have to revise our plan based on our assessment of their real-life abilities. Although my pre-training discussions with the trainee usually get the trainee onto the appropriate course, it’s not unknown for me to have to change the course. Usually the trainee has underestimated their ability and I’m able to move them from the Confidence: BUILDER one-day course to one of my more advanced sessions. Only occasionally do I have to go the other way and drop to a less-technical course but it has happened.

But of course, I do have multiple lesson plans to deal with trainees with different needs and different wishlists. But it’s not unusual for a lesson plan based approach to lead to a ‘one size fits all’ approach to training, forced onto trainers and trainees alike – CBT is a good example. For all the recent changes which encourage trainers to make the course ‘client-centred’, the course is so prescriptive, so heavily dominated by the DVSA’s lesson-planning approach that says what can be done and in what order, that it has little room for flexibility or originality. But that’s something else altogether and for another column.

Back to the BTEC story. I turned up for the practical assessment at the venue in Newbury, and was met by Malc, and introduced to Steve Dixey (formerly of the BMF – I’ve known him online for many years) and a gentleman who turned out to be an external moderator from Edexcel. I was on assessment with copper, writer and road tester, Ian Kerr.

Initially Steve and I spent some time going over my portfolio to fill in a few holes in my explanations and to answer a few penetrating questions. After a short Highway Code/Roadcraft multiple guess test, next up was an interesting exercise. Ian, as a class one police licence holder, was to assess my riding whilst I tried to ride to advanced standard. Malcolm would assess us both. And when we got back, I would also sit down and assess my ride.

I have every sympathy with trainees who ride badly when being watched because I do too. Entirely predictably, with all those eyes watching my every move, I rode like a plank. Ian concurred and said I would have barely scraped through with an advanced pass in his view.

But what WAS interesting, given our very different backgrounds and even though there were predictable areas of disagreement on progress and comfort braking, was that when Ian, Malcolm and I compared our marking sheets, they turned out to be eerily similar. The implication was that even though our backgrounds were very different (I was a self-taught courier and CBT/DAS trainer, Malc used to run the BMF ‘Blue Riband’ advanced scheme and Ian was a trained police rider), we all spotted the same mistakes and the same good points, and had very similar ideas of what constituted good technique.

After lunch, it was onto the mock lessons where I had to to brief, observe, assess, correct and finally debrief the ‘nervous’ rider accordingly. Each on-road training scenario was complex enough to be reasonably challenging whilst nothing I had not seen before. The main problem in teaching ‘select chunks’ from a broader lesson plan is determining exactly what can be taken as ‘prior knowledge’ and exactly where in the lesson we actually are. But Malcolm’s own briefing and play-acting made it reasonably straightforward for me to determine what was expected.

Rather amusingly, I picked up an issue that wasn’t part of the play-acting. I noted that Malc’s foot position on the pegs could have led to a dragging toe at greater lean angles – there a danger that if you hit a bit of a bump, the foot can then get dragged backwards under the peg, breaking an ankle. So when I mentioned it, thinking it was part of the scenario, Malc looked a bit surprised. He said it was his normal riding style and that he’d check it out.

Many hours later, we finished for the day. It was tough enough to be a challenge, but it was also a thoroughly enjoyable day. Steve and Malcolm were efficient but friendly, our BTEC moderator sat quietly in the background and only occasionally asked a clarifying question, and it was of particular interest to have been matched with a police rider to watch the contrast in styles.

So, now all I have to do is wait for the the result!

(I’m pleased to say my BTEC was granted shortly afterwards.)

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78. Working to gain a BTEC Part One

How do you get a qualification in motorcycle coaching? Here’s my experience.

Working to gain a BTEC Part One

Soon after starting Survival Skills, I decided to look for some kind of recognised qualification as a post-test instructor. Although I was already a CBT and DAS qualified instructor and have a Masters degree in a science, something more relevant would look good on the CV, I thought. The best bet at the time looked to be a Driver Education course at Middlesex University, firstly partly because it had a distance learning option and I lived in Kent, and secondly because it could be extended through NVQ to degree, master and even PhD level.

After signing on and parting with the relevant amount of cash, my first modules arrived in the autumn. I knuckled down and got stuck into the work. With the deadline approaching two months later, I presented the work only to discover my tutor had taken a holiday just as we were supposed to be submitting the work. I was told it would now be marked too late to move onto the second module in the spring. I wasn’t particularly happy about that. I was even less happy when several of the topics I’d submitted were rejected because they were motorcycle-specific – I was told they didn’t have a tutor who knew anything about motorcycles. Hardly my problem, I thought. Eventually, I gathered a couple of points towards an NVQ, but as the experience hadn’t been brilliant I reluctantly decided to drop it and save my money.

Instead I turned to the BTEC in Advanced Motorcycle Instruction that was run by South Lincs Motorcycle Training. It turned out to be a far better choice than the Middlesex University course.

Both courses used an element of ‘accreditation of prior learning’ (APL) element for instructors with previous experience to replace traditional ‘taught’ courses. The idea is that you show the assessors that you have not only been teaching, but that you have used the courses you have taught as a learning experience for yourself to develop and improve both personal skills and the training being delivered. It avoids the need to spend weeks in the classroom being taught what you already know.

The required format for the BTEC was slightly different from the Middx course. This meant the original submission I had made to Middx was a useful background document, The main exhibit was to be a portfolio which still needed fleshing out with the hard evidence.

Sounds easy? Yes, at first sight. Easy enough to provide photocopies of my driving licence and CBT card. Not too difficult to provide copies of my current training notes. But to demonstrate learning?

Fortunately I’m one of those people who NEVER throws anything away. That does mean the office is knee-deep in paperwork and old bike magazines but it also meant I could lay hands on old notes which I used to develop the syllabus, briefing notes at various stages of development, course details themselves including debriefing notes and so on, right up to the current ‘in-use’ stuff.

First up I assembled notes from the original instructor training course I attended in 1995. I added the DAS training course I personally wrote back in early 1997 for the basic training school to help instructors pass the Direct Access assessment. I had a large pile of notes which became the drafts, redrafts, final versions and revised final versions of my advanced training syllabus itself. I had the same stacks of papers showing the various stages of development of the course handouts that go to the trainees. I added copies of other training materials such as training aids and assessment sheets. I added items of interest from from the website and motorcycle forums. I added original drafts and photocopies of items that appeared in the various magazines I have had articles published in. Finally, I added selected emails from trainees requesting courses and the follow up written debriefs that are provided with the courses.

The result? An overflowing A4 box-file on which I couldn’t actually shut the lid.

I made a date for an interview to determine whether the portfolio was up to the job and to see if I could justify the learning I was claiming. It wasn’t quite the grilling I had expected – Malcolm Palmer popped over to meet me in Oxford and spent a long evening chatting informally over several mugs of tea and a plate of fish and chips, whilst going piece-by-piece through the file. However, he was thorough – around 4 hours later (too late for a quick pint) Malcom left me with a list of what he would like included and copied for the formal submission for APL.

Now all I had to do was copy those I needed to submit, and annotate them to explain what they were and why I was submitting them. Job done, I thought.

Ha. What seemed like a couple of hours work dragged on into weeks of sifting the box, and hunting for the original files on the PC and long-lost zip disks (remember them?). Sometimes I discovered they were formatted for an extinct version of a word processor it seemed no-one else had ever used. In some cases I was able to reformat and print a copy, but where the notes were handwritten or the PC version was long gone, I had to scan then print page-by-page for the portfolio.

Eventually, everything was neatly placed in a large red ring binder and dropped off to Malcolm the evening before the second part of the APL assessment.

…. to be continued ….

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32. When the Two Second Rule is not enough

Were I to start this article again (and I may at some point do that), the following observations would call for some revision:

  1. Two Second Rule: The explanation is accurate as a minimum safe distance, but it’s worth noting explicitly that it assumes a fully alert rider on a dry surface, nor does it scale well at speeds over 45 mph – that needs to be crystal-clear.

  2. Stopping distance calculations: The math is correct but actual deceleration is rarely as high as 0.9G for most street riders. 0.6–0.7G is more realistic, as I noted later. Also, poor surface conditions can reduce effective deceleration to 0.3–0.5G and whilst modern ABS helps a rider make the most of available grip, they cannot compensate for poor spacing or delayed reaction, or – and this is crucial – a rider who is not confident / competent to engage the ABS in an emergency.

  3. Reaction times: Updating from 0.5–1 second to 0.7–1.5 seconds for typical riders (and 2–3 seconds for surprise events) is consistent with modern human factors research.

  4. Motorcycle vs. car braking: while a sportbike may match braking distances achieved by cars, that’s under ideal conditions and the skill required to consistently achieve this is significant, and errors are common in real-world scenarios.

A very useful comment was added to a previous version of this particular item; “Whilst the ‘dead stop in the road’ scenario would initially seem to be somewhat rare, in actuality it is very common. Of course, what I am referring to the moment a vehicle turns across our path. I realize that the two-second rule has no bearing on the above situations. Just thought I’d point out that one shouldn’t get so involved with counting seconds that they don’t see the car about to transform itself into that dreaded ‘brick wall'”.

When the Two Second Rule is not enough

The original version of this particular article almost dates to the earliest days of the internet, because I wrote it following a discussion on the Go Ride Forum on CompuServe – that should serve to date it accurately enough. But well over twenty years later, whenever I’m out driving a car, running training courses or simply watching other riders, one recurring error is following the vehicle ahead far too close. And whilst motorcyclists worry about being tailgated themselves, a surprising number of collisions happen when it’s the rider running into the back of the vehicle ahead. It seems some rider errors never change.

The Highway Code says sensibly enough that we “should ride at a speed that allows us to stop in the distance we can see to be clear, and at a distance that will allow us to stop if the vehicle in front stops suddenly”. It then goes onto quote some following distances and braking distances.

The trouble is that it doesn’t really matter whether those distances are in feet, metres or car lengths, our biggest problem is trying to visualise these distances. It’s tough to think just how far 75 feet or 23 metres or 6 car lengths at a standstill, let alone on the move at 30 mph. This is clear when performing demonstration emergency stops. I’ll often get the trainee to make where they THINK I’ll stop if I hit the brakes at 30 mph. That usually puts them on the back foot, and it’s rare to find anyone who moves confidently to mark their chosen spot.

Not uncommonly, I have to remind them of the 23 metre stopping distance. And then they often stand about half that distance away.

And that may be a clue as to why riders follow too close on the road. If we can’t judge a short distance like 23 metres to within 50% at a standstill, what chance to they have on the road? (The way I judge it is that it’s just over the length of a cricket pitch.

But there’s a solution, also in the Highway Code. It’s the Two Second Rule. We watch the vehicle in front as it passes a fixed object (a lamppost, a tree, a shadow or even a seam in the road) and start talking: “only a fool breaks the Two Second Rule”. In theory, that takes about two seconds to say, so if we have passed this point before we’ve finished talking, we’re too close. If we get it all out without gabbling, we’re far enough back. And in the wet, we double the Two Second Rule to four seconds.

So does it work? Whilst it’s likely to be adequate around town, there’s also some bad news that neither the Highway Code nor any of the other manuals or riding tips has made clear.

the Two Second Rule is not a target – it’s a MINIMUM safe distance and should be extended at all times whenever traffic conditions allow

the stopping distances are based on a rider braking AS SOON AS the vehicle ahead slows – even an alert rider can be caught by SURPRISE! and that is well-known to delay our response

stopping distance does not increase in a straight line with speed – if we double our speed, we QUADRUPLE stopping distance

It’s the last point I want to focus on because it means there is a cross-over point beyond which we cannot stop even with a two second gap. My old buddy Steve Kelly got his trusty calculator out and we fed some data in. We travel 13 metres or 44 feet each sec at 30mph. Stopping (reaction and braking) distance at 30mph is quoted in the Highway Code as 23 metres or 75 feet. A modern motorcycle on decent tyres can brake much harder than the Highway Code allows. So we made two initial assumptions:

  1. an alert rider can react in around 0.5 second

  2. braking hard, a rider can achieve around 0.9G of braking force (more on that in a moment)

And we ignored wind resistance, poor road surfaces and all rolling friction. So here are the braking figures:

At 15mph

In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 44.0ft
Your stopping and reaction distance is 19.4ft
Your margin for error is 24.6ft
Your impact speed is n/a

At 30 mph

In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 88.0ft
Your stopping and reaction distance is 55.4ft
Your margin for error is 32.6ft
Your impact speed is n/a

At 45 mph

In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 132.0ft
Your stopping and reaction distance is 108.0ft
Your margin for error is 23.8ft
Your impact speed is n/a

At 60 mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 176ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 178ft

  • Your margin for error is -2.0ft

  • Your impact speed is 0.6mph

At 75mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 220ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 264ft

  • Your margin for error is -43.9ft

  • Your impact speed is 12.5mph

At 90mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 264ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 367ft

  • Your margin for error is -103ft

  • Your impact speed is 25.2mph

At 105mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 308ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 486ft

  • Your margin for error is -178ft

  • Your impact speed is 38.5mph

I think you can see what is happening – at 60mph, maintaining a 2 second gap, you will crash at walking pace even if you are wide awake and brake as quickly as possible. At 90 (not an unusual motorway speed, you will have a serious accident with a big impact. (And at 150mph, you would hit the brickwall at a frightening and almost certainly fatal 80.2mph!)

What if we’re caught by SURPRISE! and our reactions are a bit slow? If we double the reaction time to a not-unlikely one second (more on that in a moment too), here are the figures.

At 15mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 44.0ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 30.4ft

  • Your margin for error is 13.6ft

  • Your impact speed is n/a

At 30 mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 88.0ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 77.4ft

  • Your margin for error is 10.6ft

  • Your impact speed is n/a

At 45 mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 132.0ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 141.0ft

  • Your margin for error is -9.2ft

  • Your impact speed is 2.9mph

At 60 mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 176ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 222ft

  • Your margin for error is -45.7ft

  • Your impact speed is 12.4mph

At 75mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 220ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 319ft

  • Your margin for error is -98.9ft

  • Your impact speed is 23.3mph

At 90mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 264ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 367ft

  • Your margin for error is -169ft

  • Your impact speed is 35.1mph

At 105mph

  • In 2 seconds at constant speed you will travel 308ft

  • Your stopping and reaction distance is 563ft

  • Your margin for error is -255ft

  • Your impact speed is 47.6mph

The important point is that now the crossover point is now 45mph.

Not surprisingly some objections were raised during discussions.

“Rider over-reaction to a perceived emergency is a greater hazard in many situations than the actual emergency itself”. I can’t argue with this having done that myself and fallen off on several occasions, and it’s why ABS is compulsory on new bikes in the EU.

“It is well known that a modern motorcycle with good tyres can stop from 60 mph in under 110 feet; this is comparable to only a few automobiles such as Porsche, Corvette, Ferrari, etc. In the vast majority of situations where maximum braking is needed, the bike will be able to come to an absolute stop, well before the standard car or truck.” A biking myth. It may just possibly have been true in the past, but with four wheels on the ground and ABS to boot (literally), I’m far from convinced that even a well-handled bike will out-stop a car. Few riders practice emergency stops and even with ABS too, braking a motorcycle at the absolute limit requires a degree of skill and machine control that a car driver simply doesn’t need.

All this, of course, assumes good traction. Our friend stated: “When the surface is less than optimal, it affects other vehicles as well. If the rider is a capable bike-handler, he/she should still be able to outbrake and/or steer past a standard car or truck, as the mass of the vehicle determines its kinetic energy when speed is equal”.

“I don’t think the Two Second Rule results in such dire consequences as the calculations imply. One is assuming a fixed object towards which one is braking. In reality, emergency braking is initiated in response to a vehicle ahead, also braking. That vehicle must decelerate from its velocity just as you do, so the Two Second Rule simply provides adequate reaction time to initiate your braking in response to the emergency ahead.” It’s another fine theory that as speeds rise and traffic spreads out, we can see and react to vehicles braking further ahead, but theory isn’t always right. I can think of three incidents in front of me:

  1. on a motorway, the car ahead of me drifted to the right, dipped its right front wheel in the gravel drain at the edge of the outside lane and was swung straight into the Armco barrier in the centre of the motorway. It immediately rolled over a couple of times and slid to a halt on the roof in front of me. That stopped pretty quick

  2. my brother was driving with me in the passenger seat when the car in front of us colliding head-on with a vehicle coming the opposite way that had drifted into our lane. That blocked the road ahead as the cars both stopped almost instantly.

  3. I was following a car when its offside suspension collapsed, and it spun 180 degrees and stopped dead in the road facing me

THESE are the situations the Two Second Rule is designed to rescue us from.

And here’s something else to think about. A study of emergency braking revealed that instead of our assumed 0.9G of deceleration, a typical rider is more likely to generate 0.6G. I’ve haven’t repeated the calculations but I’m sure you realise that wil add SIGNIFICANTLY to all the stopping distances.

We also originally banked on a reaction time of an alert rider of 0.5 of a second and double that for a rider caught by surprise. In fact, 0.5s is right at the top limit for reaction time. A more typical figure is around 0.7 sec for an alert driver. But even our 1s reaction time turns out to be much to optimistic in a real emergency. When we’re taken by SURPRISE! our reaction time can become even longer. Two, even three seconds is common. It’s almost certainly this delayed response that explains why many urban riders don’t avoid junction collisions even when the accident investigation says they should. It wasn’t that they were speeding (the more usual conclusion) but that they simply failed to react to the emergency because they were taken by SURPRISE!

As I’ve said before when discussing my advanced motorcycle training courses, that brings me to the need to PLAN for things to GO WRONG. We must be pragmatic if we are to have genuine Survival Skills.

So if you’ve religiously adhered to the Two Second Rule till now, you may be a bit concerned to find it doesn’t work as we go faster. Even though I knew stopping distances quadruple as speed doubles, I was a bit startled to discover the crossover point was so low. As Steve said: “I’ll think about this a lot more when I’m next travelling along a motorway”.

Thanks to Steve Kelly for doing the mathematics.

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11. Improved braking technique for all bikers

Braking technology and motorcycle design have advanced rapidly in recent years and even entry-level motorcycles in the UK almost all come with ABS as standard. Cornering ABS, traction control, and sometimes even slide control are increasingly common. What once required careful skill to avoid wheel lock-ups is now often assisted by anti-lock braking systems, linked brakes, and even cornering ABS, present on machines from 125cc upwards. Nevertheless, no electronic system can replace rider skill and confidence, just as no electronic system should be considered as a get-out-of-jail card. It’s often claimed modern tyres have improved significantly in compound and profile design, but what’s rarely said that the same time is that no tyre is better than the road surface and the article could have placed more emphasis on slippery surfaces such as metal plates, wet leaves and painted lines. The underlying principles below remain just as relevant today, and practising them will ensure that you get the most from your bike’s brakes — regardless of the technology fitted.

When I run my Survival Skills ‘Performance’ courses which seek to improve cornering skills or my ‘Urban’ which aim to equip riders for riding in towns and cities, one of the recurring issues I have to tackle for most riders is confidence with the brakes. When I learned to ride, there was good reason – if you overdid braking, you tended to fall off. Even when I originally wrote this article, both combined braking systems (CBS) and anti-lock braking systems (ABS) were uncommon and restricted to top-of-the-range machines. The vast majority of motorcycles and scooters still used conventional front and rear brakes on different circuits. But in the last few years, the pace of technological development of electronic rider aids has accelerated rapidly, and all new machines from 125 up have some kind of advanced braking system. The bad news is that numerous different systems have evolved. Right now there are linked brakes and ABS on budget machines, with sophisticated proportional linked systems and cornering ABS on the more expensive bikes. It’s impossible to keep track of every development, so whilst the advice below still applies, it’s also important to READ THE MANUAL and find out precisely what your machine is fitted with.

Some years back when I was still a basic trainer, I bought a GS500E as a runabout and spare instructor bike. With just 2000 miles on the clock, it was immaculate and the middle aged owner’s pride and joy. An hour later I was at the local Suzuki dealer purchasing some new rear brake pads. They were down to the metal! Meanwhile, the front had been so little-used you could still see the machining marks in the disc… which only goes to show it’s not only novice riders who often have some misconceptions about the use of the brakes.

As I’m talking about misconceptions, let’s blow away another. “Braking force in the dry should be split 75:25 between front and rear wheel”. Trainers delivering the UK’s Compulsory Basic Training course for new riders (CBT) often quote this ’75:25 rule’ but front-to-rear ratio depends on a number of factors, not least the style of the bike being ridden.

If you try a 75:25 emergency stop on a lightweight step-through moped or scooter, you WILL lock the front wheel. That’s because the engine is at the rear of the machine and there is little weight over the front wheel – the braking force needs to be biased towards the rear wheel for a swift stop.

But on a conventional motorcycle, the brake which does most of the work IS the front brake, but just how braking force is split depends on several factors including type of bike, how the bike is being ridden and what we’re aiming to achieve and how the machine is loaded.

The most important point to remember is that the main role of the brakes is to adjust our speed downwards. But within that simple-sounding statement lurks a lot of detail.

So let’s start with the most extreme case – the emergency stop. Now our aim is to get the bike stopped in as short a distance as possible. Here are the basic rules which apply to bike fitted with conventional as well as combined brakes:

get the bike upright

shut the throttle completely

apply the front brake smoothly

apply a little light pressure to the rear brake

progressively apply the front brake harder until maximum braking power is being generated

clutch in and LEFT foot down (so you can keep a foot on the rear brake) as the bike comes to a halt

That’s the UK system. We leave the gears alone, we concentrate on getting the most out of the brakes and we leave the clutch alone too – that gives us some engine braking too.

Here’s a key point – maximum braking force is obtained just before the tyres start to slide. And a key question – how much front brake do we apply? It depends partly on the machine. So long as the brakes are applied progressively, modern bikes can brake surprisingly hard with no danger of locking the front wheel. On a modern sports or sports-touring bike, the balance under maximum braking is near-100% front brake, near-0% rear brake – the rear wheel will begin to lift. Cruisers and fully-loaded touring bikes generally have a longer wheelbase and more weight to the rear, so allow more use of the rear brake. Lightweight trail bikes usually have relatively little weight over the front wheel and so the rear brake becomes more important. Changing the loading matters – the more weight to the rear and particularly when carrying a pillion, the more rear brake we can use. And trying to stop a classic machine will almost certainly need both brakes!

It also depends on the surface. Even in the wet, modern tyres deliver surprising amounts of grip but NO tyres, however good, are any better than the road surface. So watch the surface when braking hard – a good general rule is if it’s shiny, it’s probably slippery! So if we’re likely to need to brake hard, we’d best aim for a good bit of surface.

What do we do if a wheel does lock? Once again, this is the UK system for a non-ABS bike. If the front brake locks, RELEASE the pressure. If we remembered to brake UPRIGHT, the bike will slide in a straight line long enough for us to RELEASE the front brake and reapply it, a little more gently. We should recover full control with no more than a bit of a wobble. But if we’re leaned over or don’t respond rapidly, then it’s likely we’ll crash – I had a couple of those in my early despatching days. If we lock the rear wheel on a non-ABS bike, UK riders are taught to release it quickly. The US school of thought is to keep it locked and ride out the skid. My worry is that this applies to rear-heavy, long wheelbase machines like Harleys. My very first crash was a rear wheel lock-up and because I was using the front brake too, the rear simply turned out sideways, overtook the front and I still crashed. I could have saved that if I’d simply got off the rear brake.

But if we have a more modern machine with ABS, DON’T RELEASE the brake. The ABS will now stop us faster than you can release, then reapply the brakes.

But even with ABS, riders are still reluctant to brake hard. In fact studies show that in collisions, the rider rarely gets much over 60% of the possible braking power. Of course, in the days before ABS, then locking the front wheel was usually game over. But ABS has changed that and if we’ve got the technology then we should be able to use it.

ABS or no ABS, it’s panic grabs that cause most of the problems when braking hard, so learn not to grab the brakes – work on learning how to apply the brakes smoothly to the desired pressure, letting the suspension settle. Brakes are not on/off switches – they can and should be used subtly and smoothly. Don’t snap them on, even in an emergency. A too-sudden application can cause a skid or trigger the ABS. It will also throw our weight suddenly onto the handlebars, compresses the front suspension and front tyre suddenly, and that combination can cause the bike to go unstable. Efficient braking starts light and builds progressively – the front forks dip smoothly, we can brace our knees against the tank, and the front tyre ‘bites’ into the road surface for maximum grip. Aim for a smooth ‘one-shot routine’, not a series of jerky on-off-on actions.

After one more e-stop crash when a pedestrian ran in front of me on a zebra crossing, I took myself off to a car park and spent an hour going up and down practicing hard stops. And I’ve continued to practice ever since.

Mastering e-stops has a HUGE benefit in ordinary riding too, because we now KNOW we can brake hard if we have to. One of the recurrent faults I see on my Survival Skills advanced motorcycle training courses is a reluctance to brake on the approach to corners. What’s the most common crash on a rural road? Running into a bend too fast! We ALL misread corners and that sometimes means approaching a bit too fast. But if we have a bit of confidence to use the brakes positively – thanks to our e-stop practice – we can nearly always shed the excess speed before things get out of hand.

We need to practice using the brakes so we know how they feel under different conditions. Here are some to think about:

emergency stops

‘standard’ braking to a halt

‘standard’ braking to slow down

gentle applications for minor speed adjustments

in wet and dry conditions

downhill

solo, with a passenger, and fully loaded

I’ve already covered emergency stops, and ‘standard’ braking to a halt is similar, just less extreme, but if we time our braking right, just before we come to a standstill, we can ease off the pressure on the brakes, and ultimately come right off the front brake, gliding to a halt on just a little rear brake. The big benefit here is that the front forks rebound slowly and progressively before we stop, and the bike comes to a standstill nice and level.

Similarly, if we’re braking to lose speed, maybe for a lower speed limit or a bend, then we may need to use the brakes. The same basic front first / rear second technique is the simplest way but we also need to release the pressure progressively, to allow the front suspension to rebound smoothly. ‘Pinging’ the brakes off suddenly upsets the bike’s balance. Whenever possible, aim to complete braking early rather than late. Braking harder and later is rarely the key to riding faster – the result is far more likely to be an unsettled bike and tense rider. For example, getting the brakes off WELL BEFORE tipping into the bend means that the bike will be settled on the suspension and we’ll not be worrying about whether or not we’re going to make the corner. If we start braking early, there’s room for further corrections if we need to lose some extra speed (maybe the bend tightens up and we’ve only just been able to see that) and it frees up our brain to think about what we’re going to do next (such as find the line around the corner). Braking late and hard, we’re focused on getting the bike stopped – our attention is down under the front wheel looking at the road surface or looking at where we DON’T want to go. Getting OFF the brakes is what frees up our attention to look further ahead.

But remember – the front brake is a conventional motorcycle’s ‘stopper’ brake. So I’ll finish off with five basic rules for using the FRONT brake:

apply the front brake whilst the bike is upright – when the forks are compressed, there is less suspension movement to deal with bump, but upright in a straight line, this is a relatively minor issue. But if the forks are compressed because we’re braking hard mid-corner and the bike hits a big bump, it will tend to kick the front wheel sideways, upsetting stability and potentially causing a crash.

apply the front brake momentarily before applying the rear – this lets the front forks compress and the rear suspension extend before the rear tyre tries to grip the surface. Many rear wheel lock-ups happen when riders are braking rear brake first – as the front starts to bite, the rear lifts, loses grip and locks.

avoid applying the front brake harshly mid-corner – as well as grip issues, the forks compress, steering geometry changes and most bikes attempt to sit up which makes them want to run straight on. This is a common cause of running wide incidents in bends, and cornering ABS won’t help here.

applying the front brake mid-corner is possible IF we’re smooth – sometimes we have to slow mid-corner (maybe the road’s blocked ahead or the bend’s a lot tighter than we thought) and the front brake remains the main ‘stopper’. If we’re not already sliding the front tyre through the corner then there is SOME grip to brake – it may not be much so apply the front brake very lightly (use a little rear at the same time). Here’s the clever bit. As the speed comes down we can either MAINTAIN LEAN and turn on a progressively tighter radius (just what we need if a bend tightened) OR we can REDUCE LEAN and brake progressively hard (which will get us out of trouble if the road is blocked ahead).

make the release of the front brake as smooth as the initial application.

So schedule some general braking practice:

work on progressively building braking power from gentle to firm and back to gentle, then off the brakes altogether

practice braking and transitioning straight back onto the throttle. Try this – from 30 mph or so brake hard to a slow walking pace, then pull away again. If you progressively release the front brake as mentioned above, you should be able to move away smoothly again. Practice this until you can go from firm braking to positive throttle easily

practice emergency stops. This is probably the most important skill of all and if you haven’t done one for a while, start gently and slowly, then build speed and braking pressure steadily. If you’re not sure how to perform an emergency stop, GET SOME HELP!

Most bikes and their tyres will exceed owner abilities. So we should aim to improve our abilities to get closer to the tyres’ limits, and get confident enough in our braking technique that we can avoid snapping on the front brake in emergencies. But don’t use brakes as a performance aid. If we ride on the road as we would on a track, sooner or later we’ll come across a bit of road surface that doesn’t cooperate. In particular, braking into bends may be a great race track technique, but there’s a reason for braking upright on the road – it’s to retain control. Even with cornering ABS, the basic ‘brake upright’ rules still apply.