Do you use ABS/TC?

s4 alan

s4 alan

Active member
Been out and about over the last couple of days and it's proper slippy! Had a moment yesterday when my rear tyre stepped out and today I nearly lost the front end on a roundabout. My question is this - if you have ABS do you just pull in the front lever and let the electronics sort it out? Or do you ride to the conditions and use a bit more rear brake??

Same goes for the TC - do you just whack open the throttle?

If I had the choice my next bike would have ABS - just wondered how often you "use" it. In my car for instance I can't think of the last time ABS cut in whereas traction control flashes almost every day in the winter.
 
Tc & abs

I ride with both activated on the BM RT and I still ride as if I am on glass using a gradual acceleration and deceleration right hand technique. Negotiating R/As involves not too much lean and straight lining where possible. The BM has a linked system with front biased braking but I still ride as upright as possible and be gentle with my acceleration to stop the TC kicking in. However gravity and ice do not mix too well so why are we still riding on two wheels? Tell you one thing, riding in the current conditions gives you lots of riding experience for summer wet conditions. What a joy that will be in six months time. Now where are the stabilisers that I had when I was a wee boy for my first bike? I guess I can fit them to the BM with cable ties and gaffer tape. Cheers and happy scary moments, Ian.
 
I used to ride all year round through the seventies and eighties and into the nineties. There was no ABS nor traction control then and you learned to ride on snow and ice or die. I remember one new year in Dundee, I think it was 80/81 and the roads were like sheets of wet glass. All the buses came to halt as did most of the cars but I managed to pick my way through them and get home in one piece.
On another occasion in the late seventies I was riding home to Dundee on an ancient 350 Ariel. You didn't have to worry about traction control as it couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and had next to no brakes either so ABS would never be needed. Whichever road I chose to get to Blackness Road involved steep hills and I foolishly chose one of the worst, Rankine Street (Chiz will know it). The road was covered in black ice so I selected 1st gear and proceeded downhill with the throttle closed. Half way down I realised I was getting faster and FASTER! Yet the engine wasn't picking up revs. The rear wheel was slipping! No traction control was going to help that! To make things worse there was some nutter in a mini following about a car length behind. Fortunately for me there was a few yards of clear road at the bottom of the hill that enabled me to regain grip and slow down for the junction onto Lochee Road. Thank feck for that.
 
I remember that winter in 81. I rode a Royal oilfield Continental GT from Balmullo to RAF Leuchars in the iced up snow. Got there without falling, stopped in the car park, put the bike on centre stand and then slipped and fell over. I couldn't walk but I could bloody ride a bike! Nobody else in the squadron made it in except for the Chief Tech. He was answering the tellingbone with 'If J/T Thomson can bloody well make it here n his motorbike YOU can get here from married quarters'! I was popular as pig poo that day.
 
Derek said:
I used to ride all year round through the seventies and eighties and into the nineties. There was no ABS nor traction control then and you learned to ride on snow and ice or die. I remember one new year in Dundee, I think it was 80/81 and the roads were like sheets of wet glass. All the buses came to halt as did most of the cars but I managed to pick my way through them and get home in one piece.
On another occasion in the late seventies I was riding home to Dundee on an ancient 350 Ariel. You didn't have to worry about traction control as it couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding and had next to no brakes either so ABS would never be needed. Whichever road I chose to get to Blackness Road involved steep hills and I foolishly chose one of the worst, Rankine Street (Chiz will know it). The road was covered in black ice so I selected 1st gear and proceeded downhill with the throttle closed. Half way down I realised I was getting faster and FASTER! Yet the engine wasn't picking up revs. The rear wheel was slipping! No traction control was going to help that! To make things worse there was some nutter in a mini following about a car length behind. Fortunately for me there was a few yards of clear road at the bottom of the hill that enabled me to regain grip and slow down for the junction onto Lochee Road. Thank feck for that.
Click to expand...

Haha
Of all the roads to go down. Btilliant.
 
abs & tc def a benefit but rider skill still the key, be smooth and cool
ooo the winter of 80/81 i would have been sitting on the beach down south tutting about the wee drop of snow you guys had ,the nearest to snow down there was a dusting of dandruff ever !!!
but i did overload my liitle suzuki 250 one christmas with freebees from the pearl of cyprus ( fresh fruit importer) looked the size of a fully kitted goldwing including the turkey on the tank
i had to stand to see wot was ahead
rode through london never got nicked amaizing
 
Always always always ride to the conditions and within your skill level - no electronic package in the world can save your skin if your being a dick - ABS is emergency only. Even under heavy load (and lets face it you should only braking that hard if conditions are perfect) you will struggle to get it kicking in if set up right - I see ABS as more of a marketing thing these days and a piece of mind thing for the sale of the bike - bit like digital cameras having umpteem million mega pixels - theres only so many of them the average photographer will ever need ( its under 10 by the way ) but its cool to say you have a 16 million of them even if you don't know what they do.

Traction Control much more useful, especially on a twin with loads of torque, hit the apex open it up let the TC do the clever stuff

Like all tech though you have to know how it works, what it will do, what it won't do, what it can't possibly do and ride accordingly
 
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