thanks guys for all the cheering up. I'm sorry but because it was during my working time and other issues I can't tell you the bike I was driving, but that is largely irrelevant because
as far as I know (don't quote me on this), Continental and Bosch are the HECU suppliers of every brand of bike that I can think of.
I really think his point is things do fail, never rely solely on technology to save your bacon.
Bingo! As somebody mentioned, I didn't make it to the passes with the ABS disengaged. Without trying to get yet again into the ABS vs non-ABS thing here, one of the trainers had a GS Adventure (you can disconnect the ABS on those) and braked 6 times from 45 mph, 3 with and 3 without ABS and the non ABS stopping distances were always shorter, by quite a margin. A couple of meters, actually, which can make the difference between kissing that car getting out of the supermarket lot or not. But that was an impressively capable trainer/test driver in perfect asphalt with good temperature. In the real world, things happen without warning and the ABS is there to save your bacon. Well, not always, as I "proved"
Imagine this
situation A: that old lady driving out of the supermarket, you coming at 35 mph, gravel some 40 feet before her car. You slam on the brakes:
- ABS bike will increase your stopping distance, which will
probably mean that you'll hit her car at 10 mph. Hardly a bad thing, and insurance will pay for the iron.
- non ABS bike will
probably mean that you'll fall and stop under her car.
Situation B: perfect asphalt, conditions, etc. You see an obstacle on your ABS bike and make a full stop, but only with the front brake. The bike lifts the rear wheel and you land on your head and crush your neck (no helmet can help with that). What happened? ABS detects speed differences between front and rear wheel. When the rear wheel leaves the ground, it's still spinning, so by the time the difference is detectable by the HECU you're already with too much pitch angular speed. This happened to one of the guys on a F800GS but he was expecting it because the trainer told him. The reason was that he weighs 240 and is 6' 8". That's why top heavy bikes have HECUs that recognize when the rear wheel leaves the ground. The C14 has a great ABS (comes on top on the comparos on German magazines) but doesn't have this feature because it's really not that necessary since its CoG is so low.
Like I said, technology is good, but it doesn't excuse us from mastering the basics. How many of us remember 10% of the numbers stored in our mobile phone?
PS: sorry about the length of my posts. One can tell I'm at home with nothing better to do, uh?