How do you like to decelarate?

[The Bacon Junkie]

I'm usually a fan of gruesome and morbid but, man, that was rough. I can't believe the authorities in Tulsa let those pics out.

Ride safe everyone!!!!!!!

Is this gruesome enough for ya?   


That's one helluva bad case of road rash!    

Just bustin' your chops, Sean!  That bloody knuckle is the best argument for wearing full gear! 

[fastwin]

Yeah, didn't post that to be funny. When I saw the earlier posts about using trees for slowing down it just for some weird reason made me think of that incident. It was posted as a reminder of the bad, make that stupid, things that can happen on scooters. When I got that story by email I thought it was a joke... but obviously it was not. Bad juju for sure...

Be careful out there folks, even when decelerating. And yes, I love to downshift and blip the throttle on my Ducs with Termis and my RC51 with Satos... ahhhh, the beauty! [moto]

[WetDuc]

I've never heard a good reason why engine braking is bad. I've hard a lot of anecdotal info about it but nothing solid. If your engine/tranny can handle 80+HP (or insert your HP here) of acceleration then why is way less than that of deceleration going to do any damage?  I doubt that you get more than 20hp or so of engine braking.

At first I agree with this, but does friction and loss of momentum create more stopping power than the engine can create going forward?  I'm not sure...the bike (and all moving objects) just wants to stop when in motion so I'm not sure you could get the same acceleration force forward as you could possible with deceleration (especially if the rear wheel had full traction during decel).  Newtonian classical physics...I believe *I am a chemist, not a physicist*...laws are saying you can slow faster than you can speed up?   ?

[KrakHor9]

Bikes are for fun (and transportation) right??  Do what makes you happy.... for me... downshift! 

[The Bearded Duc]

Is this gruesome enough for ya?   


That's one helluva bad case of road rash!    

Just bustin' your chops, Sean!  That bloody knuckle is the best argument for wearing full gear! 

Dammit Ryan, I've been telling everyone that I got that from a fight. I punched someone in the face and his teeth cut me and you had to go and tell 'em it's road rash.   

[The Bacon Junkie]

Dammit Ryan, I've been telling everyone that I got that from a fight. I punched someone in the face and his teeth cut me and you had to go and tell 'em it's road rash.   

uh, yeah... That's what I meant.  You were wearing full gear and got in a fight with that weird guy at 7-Eleven and when you punched him, you scraped your hand on the pavement in the parking lot... Yeah, that's the ticket! 

[Mad Duc]

At first I agree with this, but does friction and loss of momentum create more stopping power than the engine can create going forward?  I'm not sure...the bike (and all moving objects) just wants to stop when in motion so I'm not sure you could get the same acceleration force forward as you could possible with deceleration (especially if the rear wheel had full traction during decel).  Newtonian classical physics...I believe *I am a chemist, not a physicist*...laws are saying you can slow faster than you can speed up?   ?

The difference is gas.  Going forward you have the engine's power to accelerate. If you engine brake you have friction(air, tire & powertrain) slowing you down as well as pumping losses from the engine. Most loses I see quoted are about 15% of engine power being lost to those forces(friction and pumping). If these forces were greater than what you bike had in HP you would never be able to accelerate the bike.

With a good set of brakes though I agree that you can stop faster than accelerate.