Ride Hard Ride Smart, Pat Hahn
"How many people really know how to use their brakes? Many riders avoid the front brake for fear of flipping over or locking up the front wheel and losing control. This is an uninformed and dangerous mistake. Under extreme braking on a two-wheeled motorcycle, the front brake accounts for 75-90 percent of the bike's stopping ability, and does so with mind-boggling authority. As the brake lever is squeezed, weight is transferred to the front tire, increasing traction and stopping power, which allows the rider to squeeze still further. As more weight is transferred forward, more traction is transferred forward, more traction is available, allowing the rider more braking power. As the motorcycle loses speed and the front end decompresses, the weight begins to shift back toward the rear tire, allowing the rider more grip from the back. But by now the bike's stopped, and you're in first gear, ready to scoot out of the way of the car approaching rapidly from behind.
You knew about that because of your mental strategy--you were aware before you made your emergency stop of who was behind you, how far back they were, and how attentive they were. That, and you could hear the screeching tires. .... Like swerving, this isn't something you read about and then execute whenever you need to. It, also needs to be learned and practiced.
An additional note on swerving and braking: they absolutely must be separated from one another--they cannot happen simultaneously. You can either swerve or brake, but not both at the same time. Each maneuver uses tremendous amounts of traction, and the traction available on a motorcycle is limited. When you push your motorcycle beyond that limit, the result is usually a crash. Here your mental skills again come into play: You must decide beforehand whether you will swerve or brake, or if you need to do both, when you will swerve and when you will brake, and how you will separate them to maintain control of your motorcycle."
