Quote:
Originally Posted by Jeff Higgins
It's my understanding that most (if not all) new street bikes come with anti-lock braking. The last new bike I bought was my 2013 Road King, and it was an option on that bike. So was cruise control. I chose neither.
Actually, I believe most have several rider selectable "ride modes", up to seven or eight of them. The greatest level of intervention is usually labeled "rain", with decreasing levels of intervention all the way to everything turned completely off.
These "ride modes" control not only anti-lock, but traction control, wheelie control, and engine output. The bike has various sensors, including things like lean angle sensors, to tell itself how much braking or power it can accept from the rider's inputs. Some of our 180+ hp liter bikes will cut power all the way down to maybe 110 hp in "rain" mode.
One of the guys who helped spec out and build my Ducati many years ago used to own Ducati of Seattle, and now owns Seattle Used Bike, an independent that, unsurprisingly, kind of leans towards Ducati. He tells me that since the Panigale generation of V-4 and V-Twins came out, with their rider selectable "ride modes", he has yet to see a single one of them come in for service that was set on anything but "rain".
His put was that these bikes are so far beyond the average riders' abilities that most are terrified the first time they "crank it up a bit" in the "ride modes". Most mere mortals, beyond a Michael Dunlop or Peter Hickman have no business even trying.
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Rain mode is super restrictive and is also tied into the lean angle. Actually all the modes are tied into lean angle. The other modes also change also the amount of abs intervention
Years ago I learned on my track bike that unless the TC light was flashing for mercy, I was not giving it enough throttle coming out of a corner. The Superbike school had a lot less crashes when the bikes started having ABS and traction control and all the other rider aids.
On my my Adventure bikes they both have off road modes which keeps ABS on the front wheel, but allows you to lock the rear wheel and programable levels of TC that I can change on the fly.
Personally I wouldn't buy a new bike without ABS.