Ha ha, well I consider myself crap at most things I do mate, I'm only an occasional rider nowadays (company car and terminal laziness) but apart from falling off my FJ1200 on the day I bought it due to riding it on flat tires, I've been lucky enough not to have had a crash in many years.
My 1986 Goldwing has linked brakes and "Anti Dive", (remember "Anti Dive"? I wonder why that safety feature disappeared, bikes still "dive" under hard braking, making them much harder to steer in an emergency, and shifting all the weight forward?) anyway, with the linked brakes, the foot pedal operates the rear disc and one front disc.
When I bought the bike I had to replace these discs as they were wafer thin compared to the other front disc, which had a semi-seized caliper from not being used all that much. The 'Wang's brakes are pretty impressive actually, I've had to haul them on hard on a wet road on one occasion, and they pulled me up very quickly, without locking up, and with the "Anti-Dive", was able to maintain my composure as I steered around the errant driver.
I was lucky enough to attend a couple of advanced riding courses many years ago that the Army paid for, but now that my son is getting into bikes (he's building a CX500 Bobber as his first bike) I think we should both attend some rider training to teach him what he needs to know, and to refresh my own crappy skills. Cheers, Terry.
