Sorry. I over-spoke earlier as a result of non-representative experiences I’ve had. I spoke so assertively earlier because I’ve seen sportbikes go up against more relaxed tourers and cruisers at the track, and I’ve even seen the lead instructor for my local track’s performance riding school race around the track on his Harley just to show what can be done with any bike. In these situations, anecdotally, the sportbike “wins” on the brakes. I don’t know why, and it was silly of me to accuse Hough of “anectodal evidence” when that’s all I have to work with.
But now I have a question with respect to this quote:
“Improving items like the calipers, pads, and tires will not affect the bike’s minimum distance potential.”
Why then do MotoGP teams spend oodles of money on carbon rotors and fancy brake pads? If braking potential was already limited by inherent characteristics of frame geometry (something they’d know with all their research and data acquisition), why spend thousands of dollars per bike to make it brake harder? It makes sense to me that cruisers, especially with stickier tires, would be able to brake harder…but this doesn’t make sense to me.