750 Seeley commando in Brooklyn

When a rider doesn't have enough brake, they'll know why good brakes come in handy. Particularly useful for not hitting a car or truck that decides to stop in front of you for no reason. For me using the engine brake works great on high visibility smooth entry sweepers not so much in downhill off camber decreasing radius high speed turn entries. I'm probably not doing it right though.

Only issue I have with similar 230mm 4LS brakes on my portly 365lbs P11 is they are scary in the wet. Al is for the most part correct, particularly if one forgets that they have a big 4LS on the front and grab a handful like they might with disc brakes on an ABS equipped bike. The big 4LS wants to stop right now if the lever is pulled hard. And they do change to some degree during a ride, but a 4LS is much better than a 2LS, or a SLS.

Marian, it is a beautiful bike you have put together.

Whether my front brake is drum or disc, it is always one-finger operation. When you race drum brakes change as they heat up. So if you are a bit out of practice you can easily crash yourself. Disc brakes are much more reliable. When I reach the end of a straight, I like to know what my front brake is going to do. When I was a kid, I raced at Phillip Island. I was doing about 90 MPH and I barely touched the front brake - I got tossed down the road on a non-skid surface.

Man! I wish I could still ride a bike like that. Beautiful! I can't fold up like I once could.

acotrel said:

Whether my front brake is drum or disc, it is always one-finger operation. When you race drum brakes change as they heat up. So if you are a bit out of practice you can easily crash yourself. Disc brakes are much more reliable. When I reach the end of a straight, I like to know what my front brake is going to do. When I was a kid, I raced at Phillip Island. I was doing about 90 MPH and I barely touched the front brake - I got tossed down the road on a non-skid surface.

Click to expand...

I've given my brakes 1 finger. The middle finger when I hit the deck in the wet.

I think I usually use two fingers to operate the brake lever, but to be honest after riding for decades I don't actually think about it much. I know I don't use 1 finger to operate the clutch lever. I keep one finger on the lever when riding though. Never did use 1 finger to operate either lever. Well maybe I did try a few times on the rice rockets and 996S when I was a hell of a lot stronger and riding all scrunched up like a monkey humping a football. Good old days and all that.

I use a quick action twin-pull Yamaha twist grip which I hold with 3 fingers and a thumb. I operate the front brake with my forefinger. I only operate the clutch on down-changes. On up-changes, I just back-off the throttle to take the load off the gears and shift. I think some guys do not know how to race-change. I once rode my mate's 650 Triton - his bike was faster than my 500 Triton in a straight line, but when I rode his bike, it was faster again. I remember he said something about my gear-changing - you don't hear a pause, only a change of note. A close ratio box is more effective at speed than wide ratio.
Sometimes it is possible to get a lot more speed out of a bike than you might expect. A lot depends on the way it is used. It is easy to become defeatist.