Originally Posted by
Wilfred Laurier
I thought you said you had to calculate and figure it out yourself?
You are misunderstanding how the phisics work, and this is pretty obvious. Post the sections from the book that contradict me and I may be convinced that I am wrong. But I doubt it. I wold bet instead that you are misunderstanding the book, too.
You do know that you can do calculations based on other people's work without having to start with first principles, don't you? I "followed" Wilson's calculation to demonstrate to myself how it works. I also used his formulas and other sources to calculate the deceleration based on changes in the center of gravity.
I can't post the sections from the book because they are copyrighted material and, frankly, I don't have the time to type out and include all kinds of diagrams and formulas. You can probably find the book at a library. Chapter 7 is the one on braking and, in the third edition, starts on page 238.
I, at one point, thought the way that you did. But other people on these forums and the information gleaned from Wilson's book showed me where I was wrong. In a nutshell, the maximum deceleration that can be achieved
without pitching the rider over the handlebars is reached just before the rider is pitched over the bars. It's not when the wheel is just in contact with the ground, it's not when the force on the rear wheel is zero.