"Not happy with my cadence braking" thread in "Staying Alive"
This morning about 1 mile from home a car coming the other direction at a mini roundabout decided to turn right without indicating - happens ...

This morning about 1 mile from home a car coming the other direction at a mini roundabout decided to turn right without indicating - happens a lot so I already had the brakes covered - I was only doing approx 10mph and just about to cross the line, I assume the cold tyres plus morning dampness helped me over apply my front brake and I locked it, I released the front, but I just felt my reaction was too slow and clunky as I found I came to a halt using the rear.

Can anyone suggest me safe ways to practice cadence braking (been a long long time since I've been in such a situation with braking) ?

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Nick

Dark Angel / Jen's other half.

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Rehearse it 'mentally' before you try it for real.

Have the 'release' action ready in your mind when you brake, but put most concentration & effort in to braking smootly rather than grabbing, and wait for the weight to build in your elbows before braking more firmly on the front'.

Head and eyes up, looking well ahead, so that if the bike does slide you still have a reference point to steer towards.

If you release, reapply smoothly.

True cadence braking was supposed to involve almost 'rocking' the vehicle with the suspension, but I'm not sure I've ever achieved that in a car, and certainly not on a bike!

The other advantage in a car is that in the 'brakes off' times steering will ('should', perhaps) work, so the sequence is
firm braking (with wheel straight), wheels lock, apply steering,
release brakes and steering takes effect, straighten,
brake, steer, release, straighten, etc.

Even on a skid pan from 25mph or so you'll be lucky to get in more than three sets of actions.

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Argue with me: http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

All sounds pretty complicated when all you want to do is stop in time.... good obs are the real key followed by smooth progressive braking as Horse has said....

Yes but!
Whilst agreeing with all you say about obs' and smooth progressive braking you must, I think, go back to the basic inescapable fact that your brakes are at their absolute maximum efficiency in the splt second before your wheel locks. It therefore follows that your aim with cadence braking is to take your wheels as often as possible to that point, releasing and re-applying, firmly but progressivly, when you sense that you are at that "point critical"............................and that of course is where the black art comes in!
In a car its fairly easy to become pretty good at it. On an old style drum braked bike it is also, IMHO, a very good way of (eventually!) stopping in the wet.
My, limited, experience of modern disc braked bikes is that the brakes are so much more efficient in anycase that, whilst it undoubtedly still works as a means of fast stopping, the margin for error is much smaller - squeeze just a bit too hard and you will lock up .................. and we know how embarrassing that can be don't we.
Nice skill to have in reserve though and very useful when the road conditions are truly,horribly bad - for example massive water run-off or lots of really marginal slushy,slippy snow.

Not sure though that the investment in time, practice (and possible expensive attendant "offs" if your doing it on your own bike!) is worth it these days. I think that it was Horse that I had the discussion with some time back - These days ABS does cadence braking for you at umpteen times a second to total perfection......................but then I admit to being a dinosaur - .

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Cranky old shuffler who rides unfashionable bikes slowly whilst reciting Roadcraft.

Isn't the point that it does sometimes lock but you release it before you lose control on each pulse and the braking occurs just before each lock up? The wheel isn't locked long enough to lose control. If you could feel for the minimal slip point you wouldn't need cadence breaking in the first place. I have to admit to not having tried it on a bike but I have done it in the car a few times when the motorway has come to a stop and I've caught on a bit late!

Velocette - Yes, quite right and much better worded than my poor effort as to what "point critical" actually is.

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Cranky old shuffler who rides unfashionable bikes slowly whilst reciting Roadcraft.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_braking

On poor surfaces, in the past, rally drivers timed the pulsing of brake application so as to take advantage of the load transfer as the vehicle pitches forwards and backwards in response to the initial braking effort. With modern overdamped, stiffly sprung, suspensions this is less likely to be effective.



http://www.safespeed.org.uk/braking.html



Braking and slip
Maximum braking force is normally generated when the tyres are starting to skid. This tendency to skid is technically known as "slip" and can vary from 0 to 100%. See figure 8 below. On dry tarmac, maximum braking force is generated with about 5% to 15% slip. Once past the maximum braking force peak, wheel lock occurs quite quickly - note how road grip reduces while input to the brake remains (probably) constant. Imagine there's just enough brake effort to get past the peak - now as the slip increases the road grip reduces and the brake effort overcomes the remaining tyre grip ever more easily.

Typical friction characteristics: (a) dry asphalt; (b) wet asphalt; (c) gravel; and (d) packed snow.

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Argue with me: http://the-ride-info.blogspot.com/

It is a bit of a conundrum. If you slowed the wheel down to the speed of the second hand on a watch when you were doing 50mph I think that would stop you quite well. But what if you slowed it down to the speed of a minute hand or even an hour hand. Would the effect be the same as a lock up or would that be enough slip? I guess there is a point where a slow turning wheel loses grip at somme intermediate point.

I certainly don't know the answer but however close the speed gets to stopped you can always slow down a bit more theoretically ad infinitum!

Seen Horses Point now, so about 5%

[quote=Horse;190677]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_braking

On poor surfaces, in the past, rally drivers timed the pulsing of brake application so as to take advantage of the load transfer as the vehicle pitches forwards and backwards in response to the initial braking effort. With modern overdamped, stiffly sprung, suspensions this is less likely to be effective.

Reminds me of when I worked in the Reliant Dealers. If one ever came in with totally knackered shock absorbers the mechanics used to take a delight in making it Kangaroo the length of the garage. Err testing I think it was....

Interesting: on gravel, you stop more quickly if you lock the wheel!

And on the wet, the maximum braking force is very close to what you get on the dry (above 80%), but you have to be comfortable with a fair amount of slip.

Oh gawd, here's where I confess to not knowing what it is and therefore never having practiced it. I've heard of it, of course. Still, I'm only a novice so don't want to rush these things and overload my abilities.

I thought cadence braking was locking the front wheels, applying some steering input and then releasing the brakes to unlock the wheels and therefore changing the direction of travel.....and then braking again. You obviously do this to misss something if it looks like you're going to hit it!

You can try it on a bike if you like but I wouldn't put much money on you staying on.

Braking (in a straight line) practice, is always a good idea though.

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Yes! It's an extender.

That would be cadence braking and steering, cadence braking is usually deployed in a straight line, what you refer to sounds highly specialised, probably rally or off road

Ok.
I meant unintentionally locking the front wheels, by the way.

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Yes! It's an extender.

Damp, cold surface or not, from 10mph your stopping distance is about 1 bike length! I don't really think cadence braking would add anything here.

It's the controlled squeeze you need to practice to defeat the "grab".

I'd also point out that cadence braking is useless if you can't detect the feel of a tyre about to lock - I fell off years ago on a wet road when I locked the front after the car in front did an e-stop to avoid running into the back of a car that suddenly braked and turned left. I had plenty of space, but just wasn't good enough to detect the "feel" of a locking wheel. By the time I realised what was happening, I'd already lost the front end and was on my backside.

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