Honda combined braking system

[Agusts]

Can owners of Honda PCX or Click or many other non-ABS Honda bikes, with either back disc or back drum brake, confirm this please; if you only pull the left lever brake hard on your bike, going slowly and straight, would your front wheel locks up... !? 

 

 

[Moonlover]

No I very much doubt that. I has never happened to me in 5 years of riding a Click with CBS. What I find is that the left lever is good for normal braking, but you have to use both levers if you want heavier braking.

 

I've never had to do an emergency stop in anger, but I've rehearsed it several times and I think that the front could be locked using the right lever, but I've stopped short of proving it for obvious safety reasons.

 

[Agusts]

Thanks for the info, try your left lever alone in anger, as you say, at about 30-40kph and keep it straight and see what happens,  it's not that dangerous, as bike pretty much slows down and comes to a stop. I just want to know if the front wheel locks up and skids a bit at the end before stopping...

 

Yes, the right lever will lock up your front wheel no problem specially with a front disc brake, try to avoid that, not safe... 

 

 

Edited May 26, 2020 by Agusts

[Kwasaki]

24 minutes ago, Agusts said:

Thanks for the info, try your left lever alone in anger, as you say, at about 30-40kph and keep it straight and see what happens,  it's not that dangerous,

On a gravel road it will put you down. ????

[farang51]

I have a few times had the rear wheel lock up when pulling the left lever on a wet road, even then, the front wheel did not lock up.

[scubascuba3]

I have a Click and the left lever is something like 70% rear 30% front. It shouldn't lock but you need to be careful just in case, i always brake with the left first followed by right if necessary. My instinct was to use the right brake first so i had to train my self to use the left instead 

[jonwilly]

No, never had a lock up in 8 years of ownership.

Good system.

 

john

[Kwasaki]

I always use the front brake on my scoot the left is always a clutch to me, I ride my scoot with my feet on the rear pegs my right foot is always looking for the rear brake.???? 

[alx123]

4 years PCX here

 

Emergency braking with the left brake will NOT lock up the front brake, only the rear. 

 

I think CBS is nothing but a clever marketing ploy of Honda but it's not really that useful in my opinion. With yamaha installing ABS on their scoots, it doesn't make sense for Honda to keep using CBS. (See nmax, aerox vs PCX, click vs lexi ) They should remove CBS and equip their scoots with ABS instead. 

[OneMoreFarang]

I am glad I have a bike with a front brake lever on the ride side, a foot brake for the back, and the left lever is for the clutch. It all makes logical sense and works perfect.

How do you ride with two brakes left and right? Brake on the left side a little but if you really want to brake use the right one? Strange...

[alx123]

3 hours ago, OneMoreFarang said:

I am glad I have a bike with a front brake lever on the ride side, a foot brake for the back, and the left lever is for the clutch. It all makes logical sense and works perfect.

How do you ride with two brakes left and right? Brake on the left side a little but if you really want to brake use the right one? Strange...

Sometimes, when I just rode my Kawa 250 then suddenly hopped on my PCX for some Soi errand, I mistakenly tap my foot on the floorboard of the PCX while clutching the left brake lever thinking I'm suppose to engage the first gear to move the scoot. ????

[OneeyedJohn]

I haven't fallen off my suzuki step since having new brakes fitted after my last brake and skid accident.

It used to lock up all the time.

My big bike has ABS, wonderful.

[mran66]

On 5/26/2020 at 11:22 PM, farang51 said:

I have a few times had the rear wheel lock up when pulling the left lever on a wet road, even then, the front wheel did not lock up.

Same here. Never front lock 

[hackjam]

On Honda Zoomer, Is the front breaking system same as back break i.e Disc break-cannot see because of housing around back system?

And how often should you change discs? 

[eisfeld]

Honda's system is imho dangerous on very slippery surfaces where you really want to only use the back brake. It always applies the front brake to some degree.

 

On 5/26/2020 at 1:59 PM, Agusts said:

Can owners of Honda PCX or Click or many other non-ABS Honda bikes, with either back disc or back drum brake, confirm this please; if you only pull the left lever brake hard on your bike, going slowly and straight, would your front wheel locks up... !? 

Normally it should not but yes it can under very unfortunate situations when the surface is very slippery and/or your tires are not in good shape.

 

The Honda CBS applies a part of the braking force also to the front if you use the left lever (while some other manufacturers do it the opposite way which imho makes more sense). IIRC it applies it to one out of three pistons or some such. So it's not the same braking power front and back but there is some at the front. With low enough grip, the front tire will indeed lock up. In normal conditions that shouldn't happen. But in the wet... I wouldn't want to bet on it not locking up. Combine that with the lack of ABS and you get a dangerous situation.

 

In 99.9% of cases it's fine and probably helps because most riders don't know what they are doing (i would argue these ppl anyways will just activate the right lever anyways and crash). In a few cases though it'll bite you in your derriere and there's nothing you can do no matter how skilled you are ????

 

13 hours ago, hackjam said:

And how often should you change discs? 

Less often than pads.

[scubascuba3]

38 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

Honda's system is imho dangerous on very slippery surfaces where you really want to only use the back brake. It always applies the front brake to some degree.

 

Normally it should not but yes it can under very unfortunate situations when the surface is very slippery and/or your tires are not in good shape.

 

The Honda CBS applies a part of the braking force also to the front if you use the left lever (while some other manufacturers do it the opposite way which imho makes more sense). IIRC it applies it to one out of three pistons or some such. So it's not the same braking power front and back but there is some at the front. With low enough grip, the front tire will indeed lock up. In normal conditions that shouldn't happen. But in the wet... I wouldn't want to bet on it not locking up. Combine that with the lack of ABS and you get a dangerous situation.

 

In 99.9% of cases it's fine and probably helps because most riders don't know what they are doing (i would argue these ppl anyways will just activate the right lever anyways and crash). In a few cases though it'll bite you in your derriere and there's nothing you can do no matter how skilled you are ????

 

Less often than pads.

Why would it lock in the wet but not in the dry? The CBS won't know it's wet or dry, so perhaps you're saying if you use the left brake really hard it could lock the front? which if correct would be the same in the dry

[alx123]

Yeah CBS doesn't make any sense at all, it's just a brilliant marketing ploy by Honda.

 

After 19 years of riding, I got my first skid last year while on my PCX. It was an emergency braking scenario when a car suddenly cut me off out of nowhere. It was the rear that locked up though not the front, causing a fishtail and then a skid. Good thing my riding jacket and gloves saved me, but unfortunately I was only using regular jeans and my knees were scraped. 

 

No matter how good you think you are in braking, all those years of progressive braking and emergency braking practice will be useless in a real split second sudden emergency braking situation.

 

Still using my PCx but I already bought another motorcycle equipped with ABS and the difference in braking confidence is astounding. Would love to upgrade my PCX to either an nmax or the adv solely because of the ABS.

 

It's a shame that Honda still using the CBS, it's an obsolete tech by today's standard. imo

 

 

 

 

[Agusts]

I totally agree with the last few posts, but I'm glad the CBS on your bikes does not lock the front, hopefully not on the wet either, but different conditions could give different results, heavy rider, worn back drum brakes etc. , and on different bikes.

 

The reason I raised this question was to see how normal CBS behaves. As for Combined-ABS we have on our Forza, the above test, pulling hard the back brake lever, results in the front wheel locking and activating the front ABS...! ! ! ? It's lucky we have ABS. But still I wish it was not doing that...

 

There is no way to switch it off and no adjustment on ours as it's all hydraulic, in your case you can at least adjust the drum  brake a bit...

 

Honda loves to promote this a lot, but it never gives accurate and official info about it for each bike. Just that; your back brake also applies to the front a bit ...!!! Is that it...? ????????

 

There are a lot of docs and videos and interpretation of CBS on the web, but if you find anything official and original from Honda, please send a link...

 

 

Edited June 1, 2020 by Agusts

[farang51]

2 hours ago, Agusts said:

Honda loves to promote this a lot, but it never gives accurate and official info about it for each bike. Just that; your back brake also applies to the front a bit ...!!! Is that it...? ????????

 

I am sure I got a manual or some sort of papers when I bought my Click where is says how much it brakes on the front wheel when pulling the rear wheel brake. I believe it said the braking power on the front wheel is 30 percent; however, it is a long time ago so I am not sure how much it is.

[eisfeld]

9 hours ago, scubascuba3 said:

Why would it lock in the wet but not in the dry? The CBS won't know it's wet or dry, so perhaps you're saying if you use the left brake really hard it could lock the front? which if correct would be the same in the dry

Because it will only lock up the front when the friction is very low. This is because the braking force the system applies to the front is much less than to the rear. So under normal dry conditions that force is not enough to lock the front. You need to apply enough force on the left lever that the fraction of it that reaches the front brake is big enough to break traction in front. The chance for the traction to be not enough is higher in wet (or gravel or ...).

 

5 hours ago, alx123 said:

Yeah CBS doesn't make any sense at all, it's just a brilliant marketing ploy by Honda.

I think the CBS in e.g. BMWs makes much more sense. There when using the right lever it will put part of the force also on the rear. When activating only the rear brake lever it will not put any force on the front.

 

5 hours ago, alx123 said:

No matter how good you think you are in braking, all those years of progressive braking and emergency braking practice will be useless in a real split second sudden emergency braking situation.

 

5 hours ago, alx123 said:

It's a shame that Honda still using the CBS, it's an obsolete tech by today's standard. imo

I agree. Maybe if you are a professional racer or similar you can manage these situations. ABS is the best thing that has happened to motorcycles in recent times. I love traction control as well.

 

Slowly slowly we are getting scooters in Thailand with ABS. It could have prevented many injuries and saved many lives.

[scubascuba3]

21 minutes ago, eisfeld said:

Because it will only lock up the front when the friction is very low. This is because the braking force the system applies to the front is much less than to the rear. So under normal dry conditions that force is not enough to lock the front. You need to apply enough force on the left lever that the fraction of it that reaches the front brake is big enough to break traction in front. The chance for the traction to be not enough is higher in wet (or gravel or ...).

If true that's ridiculous as it's exactly in the wet when you don't want the front to lock

[eisfeld]

26 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

If true that's ridiculous as it's exactly in the wet when you don't want the front to lock

It is indeed a bad system in dangerous situations. But keep in mind you need to really squeeze the lever hard and the friction has to be really really low. Just a wet road alone will probably not make it lock up easily. It improves braking in the vast majority of cases like I said but in rare ones it'll make you crash where you maybe wouldn't if CBS was not there. But also as I said the riders without great skills will probably just pull on both levers and crash anyways. Ask some random people which lever activates front and which back and many wont know.

[tlandtday]

I had it on my bike and had it disconnected so the front and rear operate separately as intended.  I highly recommend making sure you have a good front tire such as a Michelin in good shape as the front brake does almost all the braking particularly if your bike has a rear drum as most scooters do.  You should find an empty parking lot and practice braking with front and rear separate and combined it may very well save your life sometime.  With a bit of practice and awareness you will be able to brake as effectively as ABS in many situations without going down.  And don't forget ABS is not effective in a sideways skid.

Edited June 1, 2020 by tlandtday

[Agusts]

This is a video from 2008 MCN that claims it's from Honda, but I'm not sure. It also could be an old technology:

 

 

There is also a Pt2 that applies to Combined-ABS, and a Pt1 that is for Electronically controlled Combined ABS for both front and back levers, used on some sports and high-end bikes.

 

Now in this video no mention of percentages,  but there is a "Delay Valve", so on gentle back lever use, it's not opened, on more force it is opened, then looks like equal distribution to both front and rear in hydraulic environment.., note that this applies to "discs on both wheels",  maybe not the same system for drum back brake - that is probably different mechanism. 

 

This is Pt2:

 

 

 

[ktm jeff]

If any braking force is applied to a wheel , the tire could/will lock up , depending on the available grip. More chance of the front tire skidding on a wet or sandy or gravel or leafy surface when the rear brake is applied if the bike has a front disc brake with Hondas CBS. Not ideal. My other safety concern with Hondas CBS is that if you lightly apply the rear brake approaching/going into a turn , in order to scrub off some speed (security blanket braking) it can have the effect of sitting the bike upright mid turn , when the front disc brake comes on. This will cause the bike to try to go straight on. Not what you want mid turn. A front disc brake coming on at just 30% could overpower a small rear drum brake. For these safety reasons i would have the system disconnected (this will invalidate your insurance) or buy another bike from a more advanced manufacturer.

[scubascuba3]

3 minutes ago, ktm jeff said:

If any braking force is applied to a wheel , the tire could/will lock up , depending on the available grip. More chance of the front tire skidding on a wet or sandy or gravel or leafy surface when the rear brake is applied if the bike has a front disc brake with Hondas CBS. Not ideal. My other safety concern with Hondas CBS is that if you lightly apply the rear brake approaching/going into a turn , in order to scrub off some speed (security blanket braking) it can have the effect of sitting the bike upright mid turn , when the front disc brake comes on. This will cause the bike to try to go straight on. Not what you want mid turn. A front disc brake coming on at just 30% could overpower a small rear drum brake. For these safety reasons i would have the system disconnected (this will invalidate your insurance) or buy another bike from a more advanced manufacturer.

how can the bike sit up if you are leaning into the turn? recently i have seen falang going round a corner and trying not to lean the bike over bless them

[ktm jeff]

26 minutes ago, scubascuba3 said:

how can the bike sit up if you are leaning into the turn? recently i have seen falang going round a corner and trying not to lean the bike over bless them

Its all to do with gyroscopic forces. When braking forces are applied to a motorcycle , its directional inertia is affected and the bike will try to resist cournering. 

[ktm jeff]

Im no scientist , but try it for yourself. Be careful. Ride a smooth clean bend. Mid bend apply the front brake with a medium pressure. The bike will "go tense" and resist turning.