IENATSCH TUESDAY: Fingers Up

OFF THE WIRE
It’s a great way to improve your intersection health.

 By Nick Ienatsch

The sign reads “Heavy Roadside Activity.” That’s the warning. Now what’s your response?

The Allstate Insurance website tells us that 46 percent of motorcycle crashes happen at intersections.
Wait! Don’t quit reading. This isn’t a hand-wringing rehash of what we all know. I’m not going to preach about the hazards of intersections and the generally poor driving skills of the American driver. Those aren’t going to change anytime soon.
But riders can and must make a change.
One consistent comment we get at the Yamaha Champions Riding School is how much the school continues to evolve. We run it like a race team, constantly dissecting everything we do with the goal of a perfect school. Part of that dissection is noticing the problems. And one problem that has really started to jump out at us directly affects a rider’s chances of surviving an intersection malfunction.
Let’s start with a question: Why do you close your throttle? Right, to slow down. Something in your brain says, “Whoa.” You’re looking into a corner, watching a dog run toward the street, slowing down to enter your driveway, riding your bike up to a YCRS instructor, approaching a busy intersection. “Whoa, I better slow down. I’m nervous. I’ve got to stop. Here comes my turn. Nick wants to talk to me. That light might turn red.”

The throttle is shut but the fingers aren’t covering the brake. A problem is on the way, guaranteed. The time it takes to reach to the brake lever may be negligible in 99.9 percent of the situations we face, but sometimes that extra quarter-second is everything.

When we watch students roll off the throttle to slow down, we see their fingers stay wrapped around the throttle drum. When they want to slow further, they reach to the brake lever. That’s what we work hard to fix. If this is your style, it’s something you must change. (How many fingers you use on the front brake lever is a matter of preference. Valentino Rossi uses three. Scott Russell uses one, but switches to two in heavy brake zones. Casey Stoner uses one.)
We teach “roll off the throttle to the brake lever.” As the throttle goes closed, your fingers extend to the brake lever. You don’t close the throttle and then reach to the brake lever. You close the throttle onto the brake lever.

Caught in action: The brain says “Hmm, I’m not too comfortable with my speed here,” and the right hand begins to close the throttle, simultaneously reaching for the brake lever. It’s the healthy habit of veteran riders, and the faster you ride or the busier your environment, the more it matters.

This is a huge deal. It isn’t just how well you stop your bike, it’s also how long it takes to get the brake pads against the brake rotors, get the fork springs loaded, get the tire loaded. At 60 mph, you cover 88 feet per second. In the quarter-second it takes to reach the brake and load the fork, you’ve traveled 22 ft.
As the Yamaha Champions Riding School instructors began to concentrate on this issue, the intersection stats started to make a lot more sense. We were shocked to see how many riders closed their throttles and left their fingers wrapped around the throttle drum. So we jumped in with both feet—whenever we see a rider sitting at idle with his fingers wrapped around the throttle drum, we shout: “Fingers up!” If your throttle is shut, your fingers should be up on the brake lever. Practice it while you sit still.
Let’s go a step further. At small throttle settings, such as those used when cruising down the street or freeway, make a habit of resting your fingers lightly on the brake lever. You’re not pulling on the brake, but your fingers are there. At bigger throttle settings, such as accelerating onto the freeway, you won’t be able to “cover” the brake lever. But as throttle use diminishes, get those fingers up. Learn to leave a stop, do a U-turn, make all your shifts with your fingers covering the brake lever.

Most riders like to have a few fingers wrapped around the throttle drum while braking so they can have more control and rev-match better. Try one, two or three fingers for braking and know that it’s not the number of fingers you use, but how you use those fingers.

We did an experiment. I asked instructors Mark Schellinger and CJ LaRoche to ride toward the group side-by-side at a steady throttle. Mark rode with his fingers wrapped around the throttle drum, CJ rode with his fingers covering the brake lever. When I raised my arm, they both stopped as quickly as they could. CJ out-stopped Mark every time, and by a significant margin.
And Mark, because his fingers weren’t already in place, stabbed the brake lever significantly harder than CJ, who simply squeezed. Mark’s stop was dramatic and covered more distance. We did this a few times and each instructor tried his best, each riding a Yamaha FZ1 fitted with Dunlop Q3s. Mark was never able to match CJ’s stopping distance.

Now we’re getting to the heart of a crash. It’s rarely one thing; it’s usually a combination. Here, we have a rider cruising with his fingers around the throttle drum, on dirt. When an emergency happens, the extra time it takes to reach for the brake lever will add distance and panic, as the dirt road won’t allow the abruptly loaded tire to grip. Bam, instant low-side. “I was on a dirt road and the deer jumped in front of me.” No, it took you another 15 feet before you got to the brake lever.

Put this in your brain: When you do something abruptly on a motorcycle, it’s almost always because you’re doing it too late. Mark grabbed at the brake lever because it took him another quarter-second to reach it. We’ve all heard stories of riders laying their bikes down, or flipping them over, well before they reached the danger that caused them to brake. Mark’s fingers-around-the-throttle-drum style was setting him up for that type of crash.

Craziness ahead? Fingers up! It may not be safe to slow to a crawl due to following traffic, but getting your fingers in place at small throttle settings is a habit that will save you pain. And get your right foot ready too, covering that rear brake pedal, especially on longer-wheelbase machines.

One more thing: The difference between approaching a busy intersection with your brake pads lightly touching your rotors, or your pads off the rotors, is night and day. Please see The Brake Light Initiative for a complete treatise on this subject.
Hey, if you’ve rolled off your throttle because you’re worried about your future speed, put your “pads against your rotors.” Practice this in your garage by rolling your bike back and forth with just a touch of brake on and you’ll find that this light feel will reduce the time it takes to apply serious braking in an emergency, thus reducing the distance needed to stop or slow. Give yourself a fighting chance to survive when a car makes a mistake. Cover that brake lever.
More next Tuesday!