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Having just gone through most of the posts on this subject , it's painfully reminiscent of the discussions years ago about "carbs vs fuel injection" , andmost of us know where that went . Peter
I've probably said this before in another thread, but I'm personally pretty ambivalent about ABS. Or at least the ABS systems I've had personal experience with. Yes, I'm sure there are plenty of occasions in which an ABS system would permit me to stop faster than if I had been on a similar bike without ABS. For example, I tested an 05 Yamaha FJR with ABS a fair bit on a long driveway at the place I lived, which in the fall would be covered with deep, wet, slimy rotting pecan leaves. The ABS would cycle like crazy, and I would stop faster than I would have expected. Without ABS, my front braking would have been pretty cautious. On the other hand, I've never actually had to stop hard in these sorts of conditions, so this ABS benefit is a bit theoretical. But I have had the ABS scare me numerous times in the real world when it wouldn't permit me to stop when I knew I could stop on a non-ABS system. A previous poster mentioned gravel roads. Yes, been there, done that. The worse was descending a reasonably steep graveled road that intersected with a paved main highway. I was already going down the gravel road when I realized that there was an on-coming car on the paved road that would probably hit me if I didn't slow my descent. ABS on BMW F800 wouldn't permit me to do what I wanted, but instead "helped" me by constantly releasing the brakes. Very scary--and I wasn't too keen on the ABS system.Similar situation regularly arose with several urban roads on my daily commute that had a lot of bumps and heaves just before a stop sign. On my non-ABS bikes, I could safety stop before the sign with no drama. If I wanted to push it a bit, I could safety stop very quickly over those bumps, with the tires chirping and hopping a bit. But when I would do the exact same thing on the ABS equipped BMW, it would always release the front brakes for an amazingly long period of time, and I would just sail towards the sign. Again, very scary, and not what I wanted. And ironically, it meant I was more concerned and cautious about being able to stop when riding the ABS bike, compared to my other non-ABS bikes. Finally, I think a lot of people fail to fully appreciate the fundamental fact that an ABS system does not increase the traction available to you in a low traction environment. It simply attempts to help you make the most of what you have. But what that means is that the wise man will have already SLOWED WAY DOWN when confronted with rain, wet leaves, etc. It won't do you any good if you can't stop in time with the ABS because traction is diminished--all the ABS did was make sure you arrived at the scene of the crash upright. But you still hit the object. So I think you are definitely better off being very aware of compromised traction and the need to freaking slow down, as opposed to blithely trusting the ABS to save you bacon.And yes, I agree it's probably even better to be aware, slow down, and also have a good ABS system. And yes, it's entirely possible that ABS systems on other bikes are better. Or that the technology is getting better.
Is it possible to remove the ABS on my '07 Norge ? I prefer not to have it intervene when I've decided where and how hard I want to brake. Had an issue once in the heavy rain where I knew I could have stopped in time to avoid a car, but the system thought I was going to crash. ( I wasn't ). The ABS reduced the braking for me so I wouldn't crash, and nearly caused me to crash !
