Total junk ..useless
Product review: Traction Control Braking systems » The Biker Gene
For those who want to waste there time ...
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Front brake lock-ups have been the cause of many a catastrophe for motorcyclists - particularly beginners or those who have done little post-license training in how to manage today’s powerful brakes in a panic situation. Still, when the
TCB brake system first hit my desk I’ll admit it seemed like an incredibly stupid idea.
The basic principle of the device is that it replaces one of the banjo bolts in your hydraulic brake system. The head of the TCB bolt contains a sealed air pocket, which is separated from the brake fluid by a high-strength but flexible membrane. Thus, when the brakes are on hard in a panic situation, that membrane is able to flex a little because air compresses when brake fluid can’t. In theory, this helps the brake pads not to grab onto surface irregularities on the discs - which can cause tiny pressure spikes that can initiate a tyre slide.
Um, isn’t that just spongy brakes?
So my first question to the system’s inventor Mark Lipski was: dude, doesn’t this just give you spongy brakes like you get if you don’t bleed them regularly? Wouldn’t it have the exact opposite effect to the steel braided lines many of us put on our bikes to remove any flex from the lines? I’ll reproduce the entirety of his response at the end of this article, but in edited form, he replied:
You are right poor maintenance and bleeding the system is very important. This is why our installation instructions emphasize that bleeding the brakes is so important with our unit or with any change to the brake system.
Air over hydraulic technology is well over 50 years old and was first introduced by the Air Force on an airplane named Thunderbolt. This aircraft carried so much artillery when it landed the pilot was forewarned not to lock up the brakes or it would nose dive or veer off the landing strip.
This is when air over hydraulics was introduced for the first time as a brake accumulator valve they were as large as a football. This technology had significant anti-lock benefits or obviously another option would have been utilized. With the accumulator in place the aircraft could actually land in a shorter distance and the brake linings were known to last somewhat longer than usual.
The amount of space in the air cavity is about the size of a pencil eraser tip and the dynamics of its design plays a role in the feel of the brake. The most
important aspect of this is the CONTROLLED COMPRESSIBILITY. The thousands of pressure spikes that occur in standard hydraulic brake systems are changed into pressure waves because of the diaphragm. Changing the pressure from spikes to waves is what helps avoid the wheels from locking up.
Time for a test, then.
The theory being convincing enough, it was time for a test. I couldn’t see the use of putting the unit on my own bike, a ZX9R, because I habitually run super-soft race tyres on it which offer exceptional levels of grip. Hard braking produces nice big stoppies long before the front tyre starts to let go. I would have liked to test the system on a large cruiser, as I know many cruiser riders find their front brakes intimidating, but instead we chose an early 1990s Suzuki Bandit 250, which had scared its owner with a few front end slides under emergency braking.
In order to do the fairest test possible without any real measuring equipment, we did the following:
1) Bled the standard brake system to ensure it was working optimally
2) Warmed up the front tyre and discs with a few hard stops
3) Performed 10 emergency panic-style braking tests from 30kmh on the same bit of clean concrete
4) Installed the TCB brake system at the front brake caliper banjo bolt (a simple enough process, all you have to do is remove the standard banjo bolt and fit the TCB one - although we were a bit concerned to find the TCB bolt seemed to be a touch difficult to screw in, which we put down to manufacturing tolerances)
5) Re-bled the brake system
6) Warmed up the tyre and discs with a few hard stops
7) Performed 10 emergency panic-style braking tests from 30kmh on the same bit of clean concrete as before
The results?
Before installation of the TCB system, the front tyre slid between a metre and three metres 7 out of 10 times. After installation, it slid 9 out of 10 times.
Now, having said that, I don’t think the TCB system actually made things any worse - and the extra couple of front end slides were quite possibly as much about the uncontrollable nature of the testing process as anything else. I was braking very hard, and I could hardly tell any difference in the feel of the brake system before or after the unit went on the bike. The lever still felt firm, not spongy, which was a relief. The brakes felt just as powerful and I didn’t feel that I was using any extra effort to reach maximum braking force. In fact if Ididn’t know the TCB unit was installed I wouldn’t have noticed any difference at all.
The one slight thing both I and the bike’s owner noticed (and we were *really* looking for differences) was a slightly ‘grainy’ feel when the front tyre started to let go, a tiny, barely perceptible shudder at the limit of traction. If this feeling wasn’t just our imagination, perhaps it might have been where the system is operating as advertised - the tiny air chamber compressing to release the pads as they start to want to grab. In reality the time distance between that tiny shudder of feedback and the full locked-up slide was probably quicker than most people would be able to react to, so it’s probably not a whole lot of use from a rider feedback perspective.
So there we go - the owner of the bike has been riding it around with the TCB unit installed for a month or so now, through winter, and when pressed he suspects he might have felt that tiny shudder once, under hard braking at a cold, wet, gravelly intersection. Did the TCB unit save him from a dangerous lock-up and slide? Has his braking skill improved? It’s very hard to say. He’s not unhappy with the unit, nor is he particularly thrilled like the people in the
TCB testimonials section, as far as we’re both concerned the brakes feel much the same as they used to.
My conclusions:
My own test-ride with the unit installed left me with the opinion that the TCB brake system is a bit like a Jewish mother’s chicken soup when you’re sick: it might not help much, but it doesn’t seem to hurt either - which was my main concern. If you’re interested in trying the system for yourself, it’s somewhere in the region of US$90 per unit from a range of online/offline distributors.
For those interested, and to give TCB a voice in this review, I’ve reproduced my original email to Mark Lipski and his lengthy, reasonable and well-considered response below.
Thanks to TCB for the test unit and Marcus for subjecting his bike to some pretty hairy test procedures.
LOL
