Maximum braking

Remember that when maximum braking, all braking power comes from the front wheel (unless the surface is slippery); this is the case because all weight is on the front wheel. If you still have weight on the rear, you're not stopping as fast as you could. You have to be *very* careful with the rear brake when doing maximum braking.

You are normally taught to use 75/25 or 80/20 or something as the distribution of brake power. On our bikes, when panic stopping, that could be almost 99/1. This in not advocating doing "stoppies" - that's poor control - but close.

A little advice to you: go to an empty parking lot and practise stopping from 25 - 35 - 45 mph (carefully). It's an essential survival skill to have!

If you want to check how you are doing, a deceleration of 1g is a canonical number for good tires, I believe. This means that your stopping distance should be 7m @ 25mph, 13m @ 35mph and 21m @ 45mph (Americans - multiply by 3 to get feet... ;) ), not counting reaction time. Note that these are guidelines; don't get frustrated and lock up the front brake trying to achieve them...