<snip>Sorry, extra weight does NOT mean longer braking distance. Tyre adhesion depends on the weight of the bike pushing the tyre onto the road. More weight: more to stop, but more friction force. The two effects cancel exactly. So long as the brakes themselves are good enough, stopping distances are the same for a light and for a heavy vehicle, all other things being equal .....
"SAY WHAT?" Some numbers, please.... I suppose, if you got enuff horsepower -- you can accelerate same as a light weight vehicle, too? And, how about changing direction? Don't the 'Laws of Physics' apply anymore?
As for ABS -- it's a response to skidding tires and hyway users' inability to learn to stop (w/out skidding) -- it's not about 'better brakes'. Remember when the highway patrol used to measure skid-marks at the crash scene? It was good to have skid-marks, then!
I am not a "very skilled" rider
Get "skilled", please....
Yes, given "enough horsepower" and the grip on the tyre you can accelerate just as quickly. Here in the UK, there are several small car companies that make very light cars that boast motorcycle accelerations. In the 'States, you achieve similar accelaration in a car weighing several times as much, a so-called "muscle car".
We weren't talking about changing direction, but similar laws apply. Absolute cornering is all to do with exactly the same physics as braking, available grip depends on the force pushing the tyre vertically into the road. That force comes from the vertical weight. OK, a heavier vehicle won't be as "flickable" as a light vehicle (but you can help by concentrating the weight in the middle of the vehicle, one of the advantages of a "mid-engined" sports car).
As for my skill, I at least recognise that my riding ability is not perfect. And I defy ANY rider to get the best out of his bike's brakes at any time on any road surface under any weather conditions EVERY TIME. My ABS does this to probably 95%. Every time. All I have to do is squeeze. Which is what any of us will eventually do in that real, unexpected, "Oh, sh*t" moment. Incidently, my conversion to ABS came this September with my FJR, and I really am a convert.
When I came into modern motorcycling (after a 35-odd year gap), I was taught to listen for the front wheel beginning to squeel (or some other sign of complaint). I could and did practice this. In the dry. On a clean road. In the wet? On a mud (or worse) strewn country lane? That's where much of my pleasure riding is done.
Although I agree with your final conclusion, I'm not sure I totally agree with how you got there. Yes, the theoretical braking force is dependant on the normal force or weight on the tire patch BUT the mass and velocity of the body in motion has to be overcame by that braking force. The size of the tire patch and it's coefficient of friction along with that normal force determine the total amount of braking resistance or force being applied to stop the mass of the bike at whatever velocity it is going. The brakes have a limit as to how much force they can generate to oppose the weight and velocity of the bike. The faster you go the more it takes to stop the bike and heavier it is the more force it takes to stop it. The weight of the brake components are pretty much insignificant when compared to the weight of the rider and total bike package. Also if you think adding weight helps to slow it down by increasing the braking force you must consider it is also adding to the total weight of the system meaning there is more weight to stop. And for some people who might think that is opinion, conjecture or BS, I would recommend they pick up a physics book.
OK, it's just physics.
With simple friction (say a block of wood sliding on a sheet of metal), the friction force is a function of the coefficient of friction (normally less than 1) and the normal force (that is the force pressing at right angles) acting on the wood.
The formula is Friction_force = Coefficient_of_friction times Normal_Force.
A tyre on the road is not simple friction, but near the limits (maximum braking on a dry road is something like a 5 or 10% slippage) it's not far off. And a tyre's coefficient of friction to a good road surface is likely to be a little over 1.
If you want to bring contact patch into it, my FJR's instructions say to keep the same tyre pressures regardless of load. The contact area is easily calculated, it is the weight (more exactly the force pushing the tyre down) divided by the tyre pressure (ignoring sidewall stiffness). So if you add 20% to the weight, you add 20% to the contact patch (or very nearly).
So long as your brakes are adequate, they can provide all the force necessary for any weight Yamaha says the bike can carry. OK, overload the bike and you may have trouble pulling the lever hard enough, and they will start to fade. We as riders may have physical limitations (a heavy pillion passenger pushing us forward), but the bike can still decelerate just as well (ignoring any raising of the C of G).
Certainly the faster you are going when you start to brake the longer it takes to slow. But regardless, you can expect something like a 1 G deceleration on a reasonable surface whatever speed and whatever weight, again, assuming your weight distribution is reasonable and your brakes don't overheat and fade.
Your heavy truck can't slow down as well, not because "it is heavier" but because its weight and its braking effort aren't distributed properly. When the rear wheels lock up, they can provide no more braking effort, in fact the braking from a locked wheel is less than just not locked (see later). Compare that with a bike where the rear gets very light during very hard stops, which is why the rear brake contributes much less than the front during hard braking, but we can alter the braking front and rear to suit that weight transfer. Also a large truck's tyres are required to last many tens of thousands of miles, they trade grip for longevity. It is also possible (but I expect the manufacturers will deny this) that the brakes are not really able to provide sufficient braking effort on their drums (do trucks still use drum brakes? I bet many still do).
As for skids being a "good thing", they may be for police investigating an accident, but for anyone else involved, they are definitely bad. A locked-up wheel on a dry road has less than 80% of the best braking available. On a wet road it's less, depending on how much water there is under the tyre. A locked up wheel also has no directional stability. (Nor has a wheel that is at the absolute limit of braking, it has to share cornering and braking grip. ABS allows some sharing of this, at least in a car, I've not seen any reports of trying to steer a fully braked ABS bike).
If you still don't believe that weight makes no difference to fundemental braking ability, remember that almost any normal high performance car weighs many times the weight of a bike, but its braking ability is very similar to a bike. And you can take a light car or a heavy car. If it's properly designed for performance, its braking will be always within a few percent the same. And the same as a decent bike. And, yes, a few high performance cars have motorcycle acceleration, even though they are heavier. They just lay more power down.
Just to add, I know a dragster slips its tyres during its maximum acceleration. Things are a little different here, it's laying down near-molten rubber that is providing "stiction" rather than friction. This also means the normal friction laws don't apply, lighter can be better. And I don't see a dragster doing several thousand miles on a set of tyres. While motorcycle tyres are a bit stickier when warm, they don't actually melt into the road surface.
Sorry if this is a bit lengthy and disjointed (preparing for general flaming), but I hate to see these beliefs propogated. It's a bit like the "drop a cannon ball and a feather down an evacuated shaft". Instinct says "The cannon ball is heavier, it will fall faster". But it doesn't, they fall with the same acceleration. 1 G. Instinct can be deceiving.