Kawasaki Concours Forum
The C-14, aka Kawasaki Concours-14, the new one :) => The Bike - C14/GTR 1400 => Topic started by: ThrottleJock on August 30, 2017, 03:48:54 PM
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Okay so fng here, I've only had my space shuttle for a month or so. I've been busy disregarding and unraveling khi's exhaustive engineering (other thread - Muzzys system, PCV, ZX throttle bodies, nitrous) and commuting to work on the bike, but other than a couple of highway pulls I'd not ridden the bike in anger before this weekend.
Short version... I'm an ex-roadracer and maybe hang it out there a little farther than most when it comes to wheeled things. I decided to join the boys on their sportbike ride up to mountains this weekend and was curious to see how big piggy did in the right stuff. I'm very impressed. It took a little while, a tire pressure adjustment and an increase in rebound damping to learn to trust it, but god o'mighty this big bastard hauls all kinds of ass when you ask it to. And I do mean ask... on rock hard sport touring tires it takes deliberate, appropriately forceful but sometimes very light inputs to get 'er to dance. Won't be setting any cornerspeed records on this thing and it'll wear your legs out thru the transitions, but it's surprisingly good under braking (track-out sbk-style slides in no problem), takes a set well and is hilarious on exit. That motor. That pull. I'm not quite comfy rolling big powerslide corner exits on it yet but I think it's achievable.
At any rate, I left those sportbike guys for dead.. WITH the bags on. And then adjusted my windshield up, stuck it in 6th and digested the hour of boring straight roads home like a dude sitting in a lounger. I love this bike.
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:goodpost:
See, it is more of a pre-made "sleeper" that you thought it was. The Concours is big and heavy, but it surprises most people who keep an open mind and push it. Flash the ECU in that sucker and get on the road and enjoy something that is not only comfortable, convenient, quiet, reliable, and refined, but can also perform very well. I think of it as one of Kawasaki's best-kept secrets. Don't you wish you had discovered it sooner? :)
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Yep, Connie can hang. I throw mine around like a dirt bike, sliding that bitch around like nobody's business. Of course I've owned it for over 7 years now. 8)
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Yes, and the fun does not end when you have a passenger. It still handles great, and the brakes and suspension still work.
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Yes, and the fun does not end when you have a passenger. It still handles great, and the brakes and suspension still work.
Mine does even better two up, just because I set it and left it there. I'll throw a shower of sparks with the "passenger" back there. Didn't want to offend anyone with a sexual orientation. I'm sure nuts to butt work too. ::)
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Yeah, it will perform, even stock. Playing with kids on sport bikes is great not because you can win (with any turns or a lot of very low speed accelerations you cannot) but because they cannot win.... by nearly as much as they should be able to!
This one day, my wife and I were on the way to the local dealer when I pulled up behind a pack of four kids on sport bikes at a red light. We were all waiting to take a left, and I eased up to the two front gentleman and said hello. My wife is saying 'Don't..... don't..... DON'T!! in the headset when the light turned green, and the three of us (front line) took off. I was outside the curve and so the two kids were in front of me but both hit it, and so did I. The road was a small, two- lane road through the woods with a speed limit of 25 MPH and a death rate of 35 MPH (two 90+ degree turns that are quite sharp, neither one blind though). When those kids got to the stop sign at the end of the road, I was with them and we all crossed to the dealer together. All four of them were crowded around my C-14 because they could not believe an old man and woman, on a bike with saddlebags could not be shaken and left behind. I told them I might have done a bit better but had baggage with me.... and saddlebags too. :-) One kid too a C-14 for a test- ride that day 'cause he complained that now that he was 26 and no longer a kid (I have warts older than that), he could not take the sport bike position for a long ride and all of them had just returned from NC (about 1,000 miles).
It is not a sport bike and will not run with a sport bike, at least not the fast ones. But again, it is close enough to be utterly amazing, especially considering how much the old cow weighs.
And then it will carry you for an hour or a day in relative comfort too boot. Yep, nice bike!
Brian
Okay so fng here, I've only had my space shuttle for a month or so. I've been busy disregarding and unraveling khi's exhaustive engineering (other thread - Muzzys system, PCV, ZX throttle bodies, nitrous) and commuting to work on the bike, but other than a couple of highway pulls I'd not ridden the bike in anger before this weekend.
Short version... I'm an ex-roadracer and maybe hang it out there a little farther than most when it comes to wheeled things. I decided to join the boys on their sportbike ride up to mountains this weekend and was curious to see how big piggy did in the right stuff. I'm very impressed. It took a little while, a tire pressure adjustment and an increase in rebound damping to learn to trust it, but god o'mighty this big bastard hauls all kinds of ass when you ask it to. And I do mean ask... on rock hard sport touring tires it takes deliberate, appropriately forceful but sometimes very light inputs to get 'er to dance. Won't be setting any cornerspeed records on this thing and it'll wear your legs out thru the transitions, but it's surprisingly good under braking (track-out sbk-style slides in no problem), takes a set well and is hilarious on exit. That motor. That pull. I'm not quite comfy rolling big powerslide corner exits on it yet but I think it's achievable.
At any rate, I left those sportbike guys for dead.. WITH the bags on. And then adjusted my windshield up, stuck it in 6th and digested the hour of boring straight roads home like a dude sitting in a lounger. I love this bike.
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Yes it goes pretty good. It is big without a doubt. Power is smooth and grunty. It corners pretty good until you run out of lean angle which I find that pretty quickly. Good tires are a life saver on it. If I could get past the $hitty linked braking system I could get a lot more comfortable with mine and do it much easier. I am a current active roadracer in WERA C class now but pulled 4 years in WERA A class both at the expert level. I like to do my own braking and the C14 linked brakes just do not work for me. I tried to order up all the de-link parts a month ago and that cross over line from the 08-09 bikes is all but unobtainable from Kawasaki. It is back ordered with no ETA given. I gave up on the idea and will just slow down on the thing for now until I can sort out the linked brakes.
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Or go look either for a scrapper 08/09 or an 08/09 as a rider :)
Other than the eco mode there's no performance difference that I'm aware of
Yes it goes pretty good. It is big without a doubt. Power is smooth and grunty. It corners pretty good until you run out of lean angle which I find that pretty quickly. Good tires are a life saver on it. If I could get past the $hitty linked braking system I could get a lot more comfortable with mine and do it much easier. I am a current active roadracer in WERA C class now but pulled 4 years in WERA A class both at the expert level. I like to do my own braking and the C14 linked brakes just do not work for me. I tried to order up all the de-link parts a month ago and that cross over line from the 08-09 bikes is all but unobtainable from Kawasaki. It is back ordered with no ETA given. I gave up on the idea and will just slow down on the thing for now until I can sort out the linked brakes.
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If that is the part of the bike that bothers you the most, I have great news- You can defeat the linked brakes w/out any kit. There are instructions for how to do that on this forum; I have an '08 myself so never paid much attention but basically, it is a matter of 'straightening out the hydraulics' so that there is only one hydraulic circuit for the front and one for the rear and poof! the 'link' is gone. Do a search, or wait for Max to chime in ( ;D ) and you find enough info. to take care of this on your own bike.
Brian
Yes it goes pretty good. It is big without a doubt. Power is smooth and grunty. It corners pretty good until you run out of lean angle which I find that pretty quickly. Good tires are a life saver on it. If I could get past the $hitty linked braking system I could get a lot more comfortable with mine and do it much easier. I am a current active roadracer in WERA C class now but pulled 4 years in WERA A class both at the expert level. I like to do my own braking and the C14 linked brakes just do not work for me. I tried to order up all the de-link parts a month ago and that cross over line from the 08-09 bikes is all but unobtainable from Kawasaki. It is back ordered with no ETA given. I gave up on the idea and will just slow down on the thing for now until I can sort out the linked brakes.
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Or go look either for a scrapper 08/09 or an 08/09 as a rider :)
I was going to suggest that. It should be getting easier every year to find used parts now from scraps.
Other than the eco mode there's no performance difference that I'm aware of
There are no performance differences other than the gen2 had a top-speed limiter placed on it (which is easily removed with a reflash). There are lots of convenience differences, though.
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If that is the part of the bike that bothers you the most, I have great news- You can defeat the linked brakes w/out any kit. There are instructions for how to do that on this forum; I have an '08 myself so never paid much attention but basically, it is a matter of 'straightening out the hydraulics' so that there is only one hydraulic circuit for the front and one for the rear and poof! the 'link' is gone.
But that hack will lose ABS on the rear brake, I believe. Not a HUGE negative, since the rear brake ABS is only a fraction the importance of the front brake, but something to be aware of.
Do a search, or wait for Max to chime in ( ;D ) and you find enough info. to take care of this on your own bike.
I should start charging as a service :)
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Yeah that rear ABS isn't important, except to newer ish riders on this heavy beast. Just ask the one who slid the rear into a lowside. Fortunately my 09 C14 has non of that stuff.
To the OP. If you think this bike is a blast now just wait until you get Steve's ECU Flash. Then put on some really good suspension. She will fly with most of the fighter jocks and beat lots of them.
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If that is the part of the bike that bothers you the most, I have great news- You can defeat the linked brakes w/out any kit. There are instructions for how to do that on this forum; I have an '08 myself so never paid much attention but basically, it is a matter of 'straightening out the hydraulics' so that there is only one hydraulic circuit for the front and one for the rear and poof! the 'link' is gone. Do a search, or wait for Max to chime in ( ;D ) and you find enough info. to take care of this on your own bike.
Brian
That was what I was attempting to do. I've read all the threads.
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FWIW I have a fix I'm just waiting for winter to hack up the braking system on my bike. I have a brand new cross over line off my latest racebike a 2015 GSX-R 600 front line I believe will work just fine. I just need new line washers, the 2 cross over fender clips and plug that right caliper line and I'm good to go and the abs will still work as designed.
The Kawasaki cross over line was the unobtanium part I attempted to buy. That's when I realized I had removed cross over lines on my GSXRs for years to add dual front lines for racing. They'll work I just gotta do the work.
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To the OP. If you think this bike is a blast now just wait until you get Steve's ECU Flash. Then put on some really good suspension. She will fly with most of the fighter jocks and beat lots of them.
Yeah that's what I hear, I can't wait. I just installed the ohlins shock yesterday so I'll work on dialing it in today. Going to do ak20s in the forks eventually. This bike has 44mm zx14 throttle bodies without secondaries, an unobtanium single-side full muzzy's system and power commander so it's pretty healthy. Still need to get the ecu flash to remove the 186mph limiter, Lee Shierts (stock body bike record holder w/260+mph busa) is going to tune/flash it. Not much except for my buddy's s1000rr gets away from it as is, so it should be pretty hilarious when fully dialed.
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... It corners pretty good until you run out of lean angle which I find that pretty quickly. Good tires are a life saver on it. If I could get past the $hitty linked braking system I could get a lot more comfortable with mine and do it much easier. I am a current active roadracer in WERA C class now but pulled 4 years in WERA A class both at the expert level.
Agreed re: the linked brakes. I'm a non abs non linked kind of guy as well, that stuff is good for mindless commuting maybe but not when riding hard. I'm an ex WERA guy too, from back in the Ben Spies days, but I never really had the budget for toadracing. Most of my time has been spent on trials bikes and in the dirt. I used to be pretty talented and rode with a lot of big boys but my wife got tired of the version of me that's recovering from knee and shoulder surgeries so it's all mountain bikes, vintage bikes and touring bikes for me these days. Still a ton of fun. :)
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Agreed re: the linked brakes. I'm a non abs non linked kind of guy as well, that stuff is good for mindless commuting maybe but not when riding hard. I'm an ex WERA guy too, from back in the Ben Spies days, but I never really had the budget for toadracing. Most of my time has been spent on trials bikes and in the dirt. I used to be pretty talented and rode with a lot of big boys but my wife got tired of the version of me that's recovering from knee and shoulder surgeries so it's all mountain bikes, vintage bikes and touring bikes for me these days. Still a ton of fun. :)
Cool! Yea I've been in and out of it so many times I lost count. I to am into dirtbikes, love them more than racing. Luckily for me my wife has been pretty tolerant of me growing up lol lord knows I've been busted up plenty of times. This years racing season was a bust for me, new bike, new class, to many irons in the fire and my head wasn't in it. I'm done for the year, no GNF but I will do a trackday or two before years end. When I bought my Concours back in June I refound something I'd been missing, enjoying a motorcycle out on the open road. Just me and the bike. Life's to short to focus on one thing. That's why I can't own just one motorcycle lol
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Agreed re: the linked brakes. I'm a non abs non linked kind of guy as well, that stuff is good for mindless commuting maybe but not when riding hard.
ABS can be useful for any kind of riding. It is a wonderful feature for anyone. Linked, not so much so, really depends on what you are doing, I think it just needed an "off" setting and that would cover everyone.
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Max, I agree with you on abs. Hate the idea, hate it being there, but it is very good.
Even my older gen 2008 model. It wont get in the way of hard riding. When the front activates, you can hear that front tire screaming from a block away....
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Max, I agree with you on abs. Hate the idea, hate it being there, but it is very good.
Even my older gen 2008 model. It wont get in the way of hard riding. When the front activates, you can hear that front tire screaming from a block away....
Downshift, badass.
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I'm considering updating my 08 but probably not to a new one, what year was it that Kawasaki updated the linked Brakes so they worked much better?
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I'm considering updating my 08 but probably not to a new one, what year was it that Kawasaki updated the linked Brakes so they worked much better?
2015
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I'm considering updating my 08 but probably not to a new one, what year was it that Kawasaki updated the linked Brakes so they worked much better?
Turbojoe is correct, but I wouldn't necessarily say "worked much better", they supposedly work exactly the same (the design, pump, sensors, principal of operation, parts, etc are the same), just with a software tweak for less linking (from what people have said, less rear brake when operating the front lever, at least in the "low linking" mode; not sure if the "high linking" mode changed at all).
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My Indian don't have linked brakes...
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Flintstone brakes?
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Flintstone brakes?
When you link those, you have to tie your feet together...
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;D
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What are you smiling at? :battle: :rotflmao: Actually the brakes on the Roadmaster are very good indeed, especially the rears and will darn near stop you on a dime. Hey, at least I have cruise control.
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You need to trade your sword for a wiffle ball bat. ;D
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Sorry Jim, I gotta' go with Jimmymac on this one: that stuff about the cruiser being fast, powerful and having good performance was passable but stating that the REAR brake will stop the bike on a dime..... well, that one is kinda' around the bend methinks. If you are not careful, you are going to find yourself reporting to us how you beat locomotives in a standing- start race.... even the ones that were only pulling 20 or 30 loaded railcars.
:rotflmao:
Brian
You need to trade your sword for a wiffle ball bat. ;D
What are you smiling at? :battle: :rotflmao: Actually the brakes on the Roadmaster are very good indeed, especially the rears and will darn near stop you on a dime. Hey, at least I have cruise control.
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The rear brake on the Indian feels stronger in braking power than the front. One of the surprising facts about this bike considering how much it weighs empty..roughly 900lbs dry weight, and it actually stops the bike in short order.
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Cruisers have always had more effective rear brakes than sporty bikes. But I still have to give you some grief, Brother. 8)
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It's what I'm here for... ;)
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The rear brake on the Indian feels stronger in braking power than the front.
That, alone, is scary. The rear brake contributes so little to effective HARD stopping, that depending on it is a disaster waiting to happen.
One of the surprising facts about this bike considering how much it weighs empty..roughly 900lbs dry weight, and it actually stops the bike in short order.
I suppose "short order" is very relative. 900 pounds DRY isn't going to stop anywhere near as quickly using the rear brakes as using the front brakes... it is just physics. Under panic/hard braking, most of the weight immediately shifts to the front wheel and the rear brakes will either lock the rear wheel because there is no load on it (contributing to a low-side going-down) or with ABS it will just prevent the rear wheel from locking but be very underpowered (unless the brakes are linked to the front). This is primarily why linked brakes came on the scene in the first place, because of so many people trying to use the rear brakes to stop the bike with no or little front brake.
But you know all this already, so what'cha talkin' bout???!!
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http://youtu.be/skeg3Y6sptg (http://youtu.be/skeg3Y6sptg)
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The rear brake on the Indian feels stronger in braking power than the front. One of the surprising facts about this bike considering how much it weighs empty..roughly 900lbs dry weight, and it actually stops the bike in short order.
That, alone, is scary. The rear brake contributes so little to effective HARD stopping, that depending on it is a disaster waiting to happen.
........blah blah blah blah blah blah .......I suppose "short order" is very relative.............blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.......
But you know all this already, so what'cha talkin' bout???!!
I could be wrong, but I beleive he's talkin' 'bout dis:
{Motorcycle Consumer News} Concours 14: (ABS enabled) 60 to 0 mph (97 to 0 km/h) braking distance of 127.8 ft (39.0 m) :(
{Cycle World} Indian Roadmaster: (ABS status unknown but probably on{?}) 60 to 0 mph (97 to 0 km/h) braking distance of 125 ft (38 m) :)
Let's see how does that awful expression go again?....Oh yeah, "I'm not taking sides here boys, I'm just sayin'..." :stirpot:
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I could be wrong, but I beleive he's talkin' 'bout dis:
{Motorcycle Consumer News} Concours 14: (ABS enabled) 60 to 0 mph (97 to 0 km/h) braking distance of 127.8 ft (39.0 m) :(
{Cycle World} Indian Roadmaster: (ABS status unknown but probably on{?}) 60 to 0 mph (97 to 0 km/h) braking distance of 125 ft (38 m) :)
There is no question that the stopping distance measurements above are not Concours front brakes only vs. Roadmaster rear brakes only.
Knowing they are certainly using front brakes and ABS, that is still extremely impressive for such a large/heavy bike. But if you want to smile- Roadmaster 0 to 60 in 5.2 seconds, Concours 2.91 seconds. :)
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Max, the Roadmaster has ABS so I'm not too worried about them locking up and high siding me. It's not scary at all and I use both sets of brakes (you've heard that from me many times concerning the C14). I am totally in love with ABS (C14 spoiled me in that regard). Also not enamored with linked brakes which the Roadmaster does not have.
It seems I've hijacked this thread somewhat, but we're all friends here. I love the C14 and still do but my style of riding has changed over the years. I don't need to have 2.29 seconds less on acceleration. I'm looking more for comfort now. However, the Roadmaster does not have warp speed capability as the revs go up.
Another thing I've come to enjoy is the integrated cruise control. It's the best I've seen on any vehicle I've ever owned.
For someone beginning their journey in sport touring, it's very hard to beat the C14 in value in just about every area. It's acceleration, front braking, long distance cruising, and accessory capability are amazing to say the least.
I don't regret one minute owning the C14. It's been an amazing bike and very very reliable. Few glitches here and there but we got through them.
This forum has been invaluable to me and many others. I love seeing new blood on the bike. I wish that Kwackers would update it instead of just changing paint colors. They'd sell more bikes and would retain more riders.
And Gary, I've come up behind many an HD seeing that bike shake at idle. I couldn't stand that and the Indian doesn't do that at all. I bought my Indian unridden just like the C14 and haven't regretted a single second on either bike so far. And I'm not using Flintstone power either..... ;) ;D
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....but we're all friends here...
AAawwwww.... :'( :grouphug:
Well, that just shut down my :stirpot: efforts.
Dang V'Jim, either with the swift sword, or the touchy-feely velvet glove you can stop thread drift in it's tracks. Those are good brakes. :)
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The Indian bikes look good, too. I'm usually not a fan of that whole style, but Indian is an exception.
Our c14 rear brakes work much better with a set of Vesrah pads. Way more feel. I believe mine were 28.00, on ebay.
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The limit on braking when a bike has enough brakes to lock both wheels at speed, is the wheelbase. The longer the wheelbase, the less weight shifts to the front. The Roadmaster has a wheelbase of 65" almost 6 inches longer than a Concours, which is very significant (the only one I have seen longer is the Gold Wing at an amazing 66.6). That will allow the rear brakes to do more in the stopping equation. That long wheelbase will also make the ride more comfortable (which is why the Concours has a longer-than-sport-bike wheelbase) but it will hurt cornering in two ways- it will be slow to respond and it will not have good clearance for lean.
This is how the 900 pound Gold Wing can still beat even both, with a braking distance of 121.1 feet.
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Isn't it true to say that sometimes more weight (+where it is) can shorten braking distances (given everything else is identical) due to the improved mechanical grip on the road ?
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Isn't it true to say that sometimes more weight (+where it is) can shorten braking distances (given everything else is identical) due to the improved mechanical grip on the road ?
I haven't heard that before. To me, that doesn't make sense. The function of braking is to slow mass in motion, the more mass, the more difficult it will be to slow it down because it will have more inertia. Grip might increase with weight, but with more weight you also need more grip to slow down without spin/sliding.
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[If weigjt does not matter your argument about weight shigting to the front which results in more braking front, less in rear has no merit
quote author=maxtog link=topic=22769.msg283628#msg283628 date=1507378935]
I haven't heard that before. To me, that doesn't make sense. The function of braking is to slow mass in motion, the more mass, the more difficult it will be to slow it down because it will have more inertia. Grip might increase with weight, but with more weight you also need more grip to slow down without spin/sliding.
[/quote]
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Interesting question Mike but I think the answer is no.
If it were just a case of friction, then the answer would be no. But tires on road surfaces do not operate on pure friction (the easiest proof that given a max. friction of 100%, then the best any vehicle could ever do would be to accelerate at 1g, and that would yield drag race elapsed times of ~10 seconds and we know that ain't right). Tires and road surfaces are both rough surfaces, with one digging into the other.
At any rate, the rear brake on any road vehicle does very little of the braking, at least when the brakes are used with some force. In fact, at some point in an 100% braking effort, assuming the brakes are powerful to lock the wheel (the case on all modern vehicles I think), then all downward force (what some are calling 'weight') is transferred to the front wheel(s) alone; this is what we see in a stoppie when the rear wheel lifts off the ground. The same thing happens at any application of any brakes on any vehicle but of course not so severely almost all the time.
I cannot speak for him but I think what Jim meant by the rear brake working so well on his cruiser is that it is much more responsive than the C-14's rear brake. And certainly I can believe that as the C-14's rear brake is pretty close to inert under any kind of moderate pedal pressure. So probably in normal, day- to- day, relatively relaxed riding, Jim's new bike has a more effective rear brake than the C-14 did, at least given the same, relatively light, pedal pressure. But speaking in global terms, all road vehicles rely on the front brakes to stop it as the braking becomes more aggressive and in any hard stopping, the front brakes will do the majority of the braking; if the front brakes failed on a vehicle (or were not used on a motorcycle that did not have linked brakes) then the rear tire(s) would lock and drag under no more than moderate braking.
BTW- this is the failure mode of tractor- trailers under extreme braking; the rear wheel- sets simply lock and drag without doing much to slow the vehicle down quickly. And if the tractor tires are doing the majority of the braking, the trailer would desperately like to 'whip around that decelerating place'.... this is what causes them to 'jackknife'.
Brian
Isn't it true to say that sometimes more weight (+where it is) can shorten braking distances (given everything else is identical) due to the improved mechanical grip on the road ?
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In the case of a bike the more weight put onto the front tyre , the more it squishes & the larger the contact patch becomes so surely (^& don't call me Shirley) there is a point at which for a given setup and increase in overall weight may actually allow more braking force to be applied die to the increased mechanical (my comment was based on Ssomething fro a Gu Martin program where he did a callenge against an F1 car and was around the downforces (which effectively increases the weight) helping in increasing the braking effieiciency (initially)
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I think the Bugatti Veyron used the same braking technique. Computer adjusted ground effects to increase braking.
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That might be the case. Again, it is tricky because it is not a pure friction problem but one of two rough surfaces and one gripping or biting into the other. So maybe it does work better with more weight?
Lots of ways to look at this one but basically, I would take the angle of the pressure, which is always less than 45 degrees (meaning the direction of sum of all forces on the front tire cannot be more than 45 degrees, raised from the horizontal). So while increasing the mass of the vehicle absolutely would increase the down force, it would also increase the forward force and if the force is always less than 45 degrees, increasing mass would decrease stopping ability.
Now the problem is that my model above may not fit in this situation. A classic case of a perfect formula miss- applied to the wrong model. :-) I believe it does fit but cannot be sure. Which brings us all the way back to.... I am not sure. ?? ??
Brian
In the case of a bike the more weight put onto the front tyre , the more it squishes & the larger the contact patch becomes so surely (^& don't call me Shirley) there is a point at which for a given setup and increase in overall weight may actually allow more braking force to be applied die to the increased mechanical (my comment was based on Ssomething fro a Gu Martin program where he did a callenge against an F1 car and was around the downforces (which effectively increases the weight) helping in increasing the braking effieiciency (initially)
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Virtually all autos with hydraulic brakes, and all with disc brakes, use a balance valve to adjust the braking pressure on the front and rear end of the car. As more braking pressure is applied, more of it is moved forward until eventually the front brakes are past the 90% point (the percentage of braking force applied) at which point it really does not matter if the rears lock or not anyway.
And of course with today's ABS systems, each wheel is kept turning almost all of the time, so the entire system becomes self- compensating.
Brian
I think the Bugatti Veyron used the same braking technique. Computer adjusted ground effects to increase braking.
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I cannot speak for him but I think what Jim meant by the rear brake working so well on his cruiser is that it is much more responsive than the C-14's rear brake. And certainly I can believe that as the C-14's rear brake is pretty close to inert under any kind of moderate pedal pressure. So probably in normal, day- to- day, relatively relaxed riding, Jim's new bike has a more effective rear brake than the C-14 did, at least given the same, relatively light, pedal pressure.
Brian
I've done some pretty quick stops at lights turning red (using both brakes of course) and it basically stops on a dime. You can tell the difference in the braking with just using the front vs the rear as well. Rear (easy boys) braking is better on this bike. Coming from a C14 where the front braking is superb, using the Indian brakes were quite a surprise (in a very good way).
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When I brake hard with just the back brake on my ZX14R, the rear wheel locks up easily ... as in, I would certainly not want to have to rely on only the back brake. I'm not sure how the Indian could be that different, unless it has linked brakes.
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Many of us misinterpreted what Jim was saying, originally. He doesn't/wouldn't rely only on the rear brake, he was just saying [at least my interpretation] that he noticed it was more powerful than expected and contributed more to total braking than expected. And it doesn't have linked brakes.