[NCRick]

Jim, Was your BMW an anti-dive type suspension? I know my old air-head BMW would stand up under braking too. I would say that this is a normal part of a motorcycles operation. As Butch said, tires have an effect on the degree, as do the suspension set-up parameters and the motorcycles geometry.



Obviously, we don’t want to be braking much when leaned over as the tires are asked to provide a higher percentage of their total available traction for the negotiation of the turn and there is less available traction for braking. At times, braking in a corner is unavoidable so I personally practice doing this “maneuver” under favorable conditions. If we apply the brake force smoothly and progressively, we can control what the bike is doing and have the chance to modulate the braking force in the case of traction loss. Try doing the exercise using the front and rear brake in tandem as I think the rear brake helps the bike stay more neutral under these difficult conditions. Also, as the forces build, you want to pick the bike up to get a more favorable contact patch on the tire. Doing this in a corner is not usually a problem, as the bike will want less lean angle in a turn as the speed scrubs off. If a rapid avoidance turn is required, we should stay off the brakes and turn the bike.



On the track we can use the front brake to help the bike “turn-in” and use “trailbraking” to set the tires contact patch, optimize the front trail and control the front spring as we transition to the apex of a turn.



All these riding techniques are fairly advanced and are best practiced in a careful way in a controlled environment.

 

[NCRick]

Hi Jim,

Please don’t take any of my input as being critical and I apologize if it was stating the obvious, I had no intention of talking down to your riding ability. I felt I may have a good perspective on your question as I have over 100K miles logged on the two BMW motorcycles I once owned. I transitioned to the Ducatis in 1999 any am working to that point with about 60k miles logged on those. We live and ride in the Appalachian mountains and ride twisty roads enough to understand where you are coming from with your (what I considered to be) very cool question. Having ridden street bikes extensively since the late 70s I know that I am still on a fairly steep learning curve and I certainly do not consider myself to be any kind of great rider. I do try to be a student of the game and really enjoy trying to become better at it as well as learning to better understand what happens when I ride. I started racing in the AHRMA BOTT ( battle of the twins) series on my 748 a few years ago (as a professional back-marker) just to get more track time so I can learn a little more.

I for one am always very interested to discuss any issues related to riding and chassis dynamics and look forward to learning from each opportunity. I am certainly no expert.

I suggest you check out the front and rear ride height and sag settings on your bike, it may well have been played with. If the previous owner flattentd the center of the tires, that too could be making the bike act strange.