ABS is a non obtrusive life saver....PERIOD

Active suspension (imho) is only a factor for sports bikes on track days.

Throttle by wire can be a PIA at times depending on bike and torque curve when getting on or off the throttle hard.

Tractions modes are another life saver during poor riding conditions.

Throttle power modes on most bikes are deleted under full acceleration so it more of an issue of how fast they come on when in different modes.  This can be an issue with 'jerkiness' at low speeds.  I personally prefer my wrist as the power control mode.

Cruise Control is a nice option on long open road rides where speed is kept at a constant for the ride.  I don't like using it in even mild traffic.


On most bikes, all these features can be turned off so they are only used by riders who want the conveniences they provide.

-jm2c

Wow, good job!

Who's your chiropractor

"I own a motorcycle" brag thread.

No chiropractor but I have a great surgeon.  4 vertebrae fused in my neck and stenosis........  But hey no pain, no gain.  Earning the miles one at a time.

I've never had ABS on  bike and everyone seems to appose it until they buy one with it.  Afterwards they are almost all sold on it and won't go back to a bike without.

LOL I'm turned off by all the gizmos on new everythings!!!

After having rode a friend KTM1190adv on a little offroad,  I NEED ONE.

The lean sensitive ABS and traction control is amazing,  and it's not like I don't know how to ride on a limited traction surface with shit for grip.

BMW traction control is amazing.  Would have crashed without it more than once.

They had to add computers for engine emissions management.

Once they have that on board, the marketeers say, "What else can we do with it?"  

This turns into a bunch of unnecessary junk they use to advertise, market, promote, (and hopefully) sell the bikes.

I don't know I have a KLR 650.

I do enjoy locking up the back a bit intentionally at times though.

Someone didn't read the thread responses.

No, I can't afford your gas on this one...  I like older bikes as much as the next guy,  but my R1M saved me from the mother of all high-sides last summer in a corner I really want expecting trouble with.  

There is no point in making bikes so far out of the league if an average rider - or even experienced ones in my case.  There is nothing wrong with making really competent bikes that have electronics that allow mere mortals to sample some of what the bike is capable of.

I say "some" because it's really telling to see how little they intervene even when you think you are riding like a total track star.  I download and analyze every fast country ride I take and is fairly rare that any TC,  Abs,  or slide control is needed,  but man am I grateful is there when my ass is kicked  so far out of the seat I feel cold air on my taint.

My other sportbike is a 2005 GSX-R1000,  probably the manliest non-electronic bike you could buy.  It's hilariously dangerous to ride hard on public roads-enjoyable but scary.  If I had not been on my R1M when I had my high-side I'd be looking at a totaled bike and months off work.  I'm not an invincible 26 year old kid anymore...  I'm  a 44 year old professional with obligations.  If I can ride a bike harder than I ever could before and do it safely....  Sign me up.

The bike I bought a few months ago is my first one with ABS. I don't think I have used it so far and hadn't noticed it being there,  so I have no problem with that.   If it were a problem I can shut it off.

eta: the only new feature I have seen that I am not really a fan of is linked brakes. I like to be able to control mine separately.

Once bikes went to FI, why the F would you still want useless, breakage prone  cables?

Nice.  I love me some supermoto's.  Fun as hell.  My KTM 625 SMC is gone but not forgotten and I agree with you on the ADV.  It's on the list.

That's how it went for me.

I has a KZ650 back in the mid 90s, and I loved that thing.  Kept the points, too.  

Wish they made a cheap bike like that today.  As far as I'm concerned, kick start, points, and a carb are plenty good for me.  

I will take disc front and rear, though.  Drums are for the birds.

I don't really mind efi or electric starter.. much past that and it starts to be more that I'm willing to trust.

I like limiting my ride to my skill set not what I hope the bike will do if it is preforming correctly. If that means my ABS is apply breaks sooner or if I have to roll off a little before the turn on the wet road, well so be it.

each to his own.

Attached File

Back in 2009 I did a bike trip from IL to Cody, WY on my 95 Honda Magna.  Now, the magna is not designed for touring so I made a few modifications:

1)  Added a two gal gas tank on the luggage rack and connected it to the main fuel line
2)  Added saddle bags, highway pegs, tank bag.
3)  Changed the rear sprocket to bring the rpm's down for better mileage.

I got the snot beat out of me by the wind, rain, bugs, rocks, etc.  as the bike had no fairing

Got home and said I'll never do that again.  Went out and bought a 2010 kawasaki voyager with cruise, radio, ipod connection, abs, hard bags, heated seats.

I squeezed a sony xplode amplifier into the front fairing above the radio and swapped out the speakers.  

I still take my 93 cbr600f2 out every once in a while.  When I was younger I took that bike to many places, furthest being Troy, MT.

I prefer comfort these days.

I cant believe I am wading into an ABS debate as I just did this on ADVrider lately. However, in my opinion the flaw in your logic is that you will somehow ride differently with ABS. You don't and in fact you will have no idea it is even there unless it is actually needed. You still need common sense and riding skills but if the occasion arises that you have to give it all you have because that deer just leapt into your vision, or that mattress just flew off the back of that truck, or an alien craft rockets down in front of you then you will have a controlled and almost universally shorter stop on unknown and varied surfaces.

And yes you have ridden for x number of years and never needed it. I rode for 22 years and never used my insurance...until I did.

Dual steering stabilizers? I like it! Needs more dual discs, stroker plates and a single loop frame for all the tough guy glory

In the next year or so 99.9% of the bikes sold in the US will have fuel injection and ABS brakes.

Euro regulations.

I have a bike with all of the bells and whistles.
After riding it for a while I have to say they have grown on me.

Cables don't break unless you don't take care of them.

folks in this thread are talking about how ABS and traction control allow them to ride harder and faster than if they didn't have it.

ABS isn't a deal breaker for me on a bike if it is there but to to depend on it and ride differently because it is there is asking for trouble.

edit to add quotes:

I concede to your point. Most riders I know ride like it isn't there as it should be.

For the street, all those gizmos equal safety and ultimately more riding time, which is the point, right?  

If you want a "pure" riding experience, ride a dirt bike on some gnarly single track.

The reality is that these new systems move the limits, not the rider's ability.  Sometimes that means the rider goes from near the line to far from it when their skill run out of checks to write.  That could prevent a crash.  But it isn't a fix-all, and just like any other technology, we soon become dependent on it.  It can certainly make a rider oblivious to their own limit because the bike's technology is masking it.  But if you understand the systems and how it changes the riding dynamic, they can be a huge benefit.

MotoGP bikes are currently unrideable at the limits without traction control and technology.  And places like California Superbike School have moved to high-tech bikes (BMW S1000RR) because the technology does help make riding safer.  

I see a lot of track videos where the TC dash lights are coming on all the time.  If the rider never goes back to review their footage and try to understand WHY the TC was kicking in mid-corner, then the system is just a crutch.  But if they review their footage and realize they rolled on too much throttle with too much lean angle, and that's why TC intervened, they can work to improve their skills.

My bike is 100% analog.  I have no traction control, ABS, etc.  Just a throttle, brakes and a slipper clutch.  It's all on me as the rider to know my limits and the bike's.  When I ride a track day, I try to push a little bit each lap to try and find the inner edges of those limits.  All those rider aids might make that harder, I don't know, as I've never ridden a bike with those systems.  

But if you ride within your limits all the time, then these systems on the bike just increase the safety margin by a large percentage.  And that's not a bad thing ultimately.

Go practice in a parking lot, find the threshold limit for your ABS, its a lot farther than you would think.

Good post.

Technology in cars is similar-there is a commercial about parents teaching their kids to drive.Lucky for them,the technology keeps them from backing out into someone or pulling into a lane with a motorcycle.

Technology is great,but I think too many people rely on it instead of using their heads/skills.As technology advances,the skills/using your head will be lost as you assume technology will take care of it.

A mans got to know his limitations.

Nice.

I like my bikes the way I like my trucks, no abs, no electronic garbage to fail

sadly it is getting harder to find newish bikes without all that and it is impossible to find newish trucks without it

Bump for the night crew.

Love cruise control.

My GS has fuel injection, abs (which I can turn off for off-road), and wonderful heated grips.

My favorite feature by far though,

is that electric starter.

Several years ago I was riding on a rainy cold wet morning on a ranch road south of Ozona Texas when a young spike buck jumped up out of the ditch and ran right across my path.
I went as hard as I could on the old 1992 BMW K75S brakes which just so happened to have ABS and that old bike just hunkered down and stopped just in time.
That is the only time on a motorcycle I can ever remember that that old space age 1992 technology saved my ass.
After the fact I quickly realized I would have been in a big world of hurt without it in the middle of nowhere.

My 78 KZ650SR has disc front and rear. And points. Only things I really changed on it was the headlight, led idiot lights, and switched it to blade style fuses.

Lol

There is reliabilty in simplicity.  I'm interested to see how the gizmos will stand the test of time.  I'm glad it will be several more years before I need to buy again so they have time to work out the bugs and have a highly refined product.  

My '15 CBR1000RR is the last of the supersports without all the gizmos and I kind of like it like that, though I don't really push the thing too hard since I only ride street.

I can only tell you that having Electronics on board has allowed me to do things I never would have tried before. You need to open your mind a bit, not all rider aids are there for safety, some of them are performance enhancers. The electronics on my bikes aren't there to hold you back, and in most cases you don't even feel the intervention because the bike knows what is happening before you do. These systems aren't add-ons like they used to be in the past where a manufacturer said  "hey, we've got this touring bike... let's pay Bosch to design an ABS system for it and we'll market the piss out of it even if it's only so-so". My R1M, like all of the manufacturers these days use an Inertial Measurement Unit (5 or 6 axis gyro/accelerometer package) to determine what is happening with vehicle dynamics. The bike doesn't so much save you as never give you enough of the fly-by-wire throttle to get in trouble in the first place. It doesn't "cut" power, it only gives you an amount the chassis can take based on what the IMU is seeing. Everything is lean angle and accel/decel dependant...

Here's a cornering scenario for my bike:

I'm in a corner at just enough throttle to stabilize the bike
I make a request to accelerate by opening the throttle
Bike does calculations thousands of times a second see what the chassis is doing and what forces are being applied
Bike set TC sensitivity based on lean angle
Bike opens throttle bodies up to my throttle position requested
Bike accelerates
Rider gets greedy, asks for more throttle
Bike accelerates more
Wheel speed sensors detect rear wheel outruns front wheel while detecting an unexpected loss in percentage of acceleration
Bike slightly reduced throttle
Rider can't feel power cut, still accelerating like his balls are on fire
Bike detects traction regained and resumes full throttle
Rider goes over broken pavement
Rear end lights up and steps out, bike reduces power and cuts ignition
Rider hears the ignition cut and feels a twitch in the chassis, keeps the throttle pinned, massive highside averted before he even had time to roll out of the throttle.

It's just not like you think. Some of the bikes out there still offer true intervention in the form of spark cuts that are intrusive-the BMW S1000RR comes to mind with its pogo-stick wheelie control kicking in and out under heavy throttle. More modern bikes (R1, CBR1000, GSXR, ZX10, Panigale) are totally integrated and you never feel them "saving you" until it's a very bad situation or you have the sensitivity turned down. You might think they are a crutch, but the truth is that any rider good enough to deserve to be on a sport bike will benefit hugely from electronics and the ones who don't stand a chance to make it thru their first season.

There is something magical about a sporting motorcycle that just behaves... stable chassis all the time, no pitching under braking and acceleration, no shaking and weaving, and all the license in the world to do whatever you want with your throttle.... if there is a risk in any of it, it allows riders to get in over their heads with brake markers, but pretty much the only way to crash these bikes is to lose the front or run off of the track. That's not a bad thing.... especially since it comes with no downside.

I own three. 

That's a sweet bike. I love the generator shovels. Have a 68 rigid myself. It's in need of some love right now.

I wouldn't worry about how developed these systems are, they are all very good out of the box these days. They all work and you REALLY have to riding the wheels off the bike to get them to kick in. You'll have to adjust your brain a bit to get past the fear of using full throttle on a fast downhill 130mph turn, but these bikes are just fantastic these days.

Here is how my bike arrested a wheelie out of a corner (it comes with a 20 channel GPS data logger), you can see where the LIFT control intervened and the throttle deviated from the throttle body position to arrest the wheelie in the air, hold it for a bit, and then let it down.

Pretty magical. 2nd gear, 80-90 mph with no risk it will flip itself. ETA: just went back and looked. It held a 20 degree wheelie, enough to have fun and feel like a GP God, not enough to get in trouble.



And just becuz,....

Your long post kinda makes the point I was trying to make for me.
Since you are just making requests and the bike makes the decision whether to carry out those requests, are you really riding the bike or are you just along for the ride ?

Can you still do stoppies and make long ass skid marks with an ABS equipped bike?

Yea? Well I own three and a half! (One is a '79 Vespa)

That's nice and very neat.

Tell you what, you buy a bike with all of the bells and whistles and you get it cranked over in a corner on the gas and then let go of the handlebars and pull your feet off the pegs and then you come back to us and ask that stupid question again.  

I'm that way with all new vehicles, not just motorcycles. My daily driver is a 1995 Saturn sedan. The more new rental cars I drive on work trips, the longer I intend to drive that Saturn.

No, you very much still have to ride the bike. Traction limits still apply at the ragged edge especially with the front tire.

And believe me, it takes a set of stones to get close to the real physical limitations of a superbike. I don't know if you have ever done a trackday or what your experience level is, but I'm two years into owning my R1M and it still requires a colossal amount of trust to let the bike do its thing sometimes and ignore thirty years worth of riding reflexes.

Another interesting data point-I was off my GSXR for about a month when the new hotness came into my garage. Then I didn't ride it again for a few weeks while I was learning to trust the Yamaha... I lost the front end in a corner for the first time ever, and I've owned the bike for 11 years. I wasn't expecting it, and I was in a familiar corner.. the Yamaha moved my riding skill-or more appropriately my comfort level-up to a point I was used to riding fast on cold sticky trackday tires so when I railed around my favorite offramp on cold 5 year old D208's it tucked at the apex. I stayed on but it aggravated an old back injury and gave me some pause for thought..