Oh yeah, I forgot they removed the K5. Animal that thing, total grin machine. What's the deal? Is it because a new one's just arrived that might still not "better" it?
Trail braking is ultra-important on a bike, and the AI are simply excellent at it. I tend to find they catch me up when I brake as well.
Under heavy braking, the front end does most of the work because the relatively high centre of gravity and short wheelbase mean there is loads more grip on the front than rear ("weight transfer"), and it's very easy to lock the rear (especially combined with engine braking; hence slipper clutches). But you do need a bit of rear to really slow down in this game, moreso than in the first.
When you've got the bike on its ear, using the front brake will pull the bike tighter into the corner, to a point, i.e. the limit of adhesion (traction circle). Breaching that limit would cause a low-side, but using the front might also make the bike spiky on the steering up to that point - it's a bit of a dangerously fine line (although I'm more used to it off-road where recovery windows for slides are much larger).
Using the rear will mechanically push you wide / stabilise the turn, meaning you have to slow down more to achieve a given yaw rate as compared to front brake only. Again, to a point: if you overdo it, the rear will just whip round on you. It's generally the safer option in most conditions, but not necessarily the fastest way mid-turn.
So if you're still trying to slow down whilst cornering, a bit of front and rear together is useful because the weight transfer is not as severe (some grip is being used to turn instead). That means you can effectively use both tyres to slow you down without sacrificing cornering grip as much as you would just using one brake on one tyre. Varying the amount of each brake can be used to adjust the balance of over / under steer caused by each brake's action (below the grip limit), meaning line adjustment without additional speed penalty.
Some of this is related to geometry changes: front brake causes fork dive, and rear brake can either jack up or compress the swingarm slightly (depending on pivot geometry and caliper placement, plus any linkages) as well as dive the fork a bit, so that comes into effect mid-corner, too and affects the front / rear grip balance along with spring rates and damping and blah blah...
The rear brake is also very useful for covering wheelies on the more powerful machines. The issue with all these additional usages in the game is that you don't get an analogue control for the rear brake by default, so I find it's quite limited in its application in all but the heaviest of braking.
Some professional riders claim to only use the front brake (notably Rossi), so it's maybe no big deal. In RIDE 2, I use both brakes for big stops and switch to front only for very gentle trail braking right up to the apex; get it turned and gas out like a maniac
In the real world I use front brake only for hard braking, and a lightly-applied mixture of front and rear for
very limited trail braking, plus "pucker" / line adjust moments - generally preferring the rear brake, even exclusively at lower speeds, for "safety".
Learned alot from it.
Sound/Handling.
