When it comes to riding in the rain, wet roads are not your friend. However, sometimes you forget to check the weather app and the sky opens up. So what do you do? Riding on wet roads makes simple task, like braking, become dangerous. So here’s some tips for wet braking and managing your motorcycle on wet roads.
Wet Braking: How to Stop In the Rain
Play it cool and keep it smooth
One of the most important things to remember when wet braking is to keep it smooth. By doing this, you’ll get the best performance from your brakes. So instead of clamping down, just apply slow pressure to ease into a stop. This will keep your front or rear wheels from locking up. Once you’ve eased in with a slow but steady braking application, then you can add more pressure to reach your full stop.
Avoid the Lines
Believe it or not, the paint on the roads can be ultra slick. So just grazing either the wet white or yellow lines when braking can cause you to lose traction. So before ever applying the brakes, be sure to avoid any paint on the road.
Go to a Parking Lot to Practice
Odds are, when you see rain you don’t want to automatically hop on your bike. But that may not be a bad idea. Next time it begins to drizzle, grab your helmet and go the nearest empty parking lot. When you get there, practice your wet braking. By doing this, you can better learn how your bike and tires handle on wet roads. Then, you will become more comfortable with wet braking just in case find yourself stuck in a downpour.
Feel for Skidding
When you go to practice, it’s important that you pay close attention to what your motorcycle does. One of the biggest dangers when wet braking is the threat of skidding. But when you know what you’re looking for, there’s a few signs that you’re going to skid. For one thing, your motorcycle will drastically loose speed. At this point, you can normally sense that the bike it about to go. If you can recognize these signs, you can let go of the brake lever and allow it to recover.
In short, you really don’t want to learn wet braking while actually practicing on the road in a storm. Instead, it’s best to practice it in a safe area. That way, if you do find yourself in the middle of a downpour, you’ll know how to brake on wet roads.