Drafting busses and lorries

TheBrick(Tommy) [quote]chris crash some one said that we could stop at about 0.5g with a front break, and cars at 0.8g, so they would have roughly 60% more stopping power.

they would also have more mass, a lot more mass, greater then 60% more, so i at the same speed would have more velocity and therefore a longer stopping distance. i would also hazard a guess that the 0.8g is for all four wheels with the pedal break, while the 0.5 is for just a front.

It is to do with the center of gravity being high on bike that limits braking power of a bike. The friction which can be archived between the fount tyre and road is greater than or equal to the amount needed to allow rotation about a point (the point in question being the contact point of front wheel to the road surface). [/quote]
good point (pun not intended :) - it's the angle to the contact patch, not the axle, that matters.

chris, the extra mass of the car doesn't matter - a car at 0.5g stops in the same distance as a bike at 0.5g, so at 0.8g they've got a significant edge.