I have been reading, and reviewing videos, about many riders singing the praises of trail braking in turns. They are going into turns with light pressure on the front brake that slowly increases until the apex of a turn and then backing off the brake while rolling on the throttle to come out of the turn. The purported benefit of doing so is to shift the force to the front while loading up the front shocks and increasing the contact surface area of the front tire and therefore not having to lean the bike over as much to make a tight turn. I respect a lot of guys on this board and curious of your opinions. Thanks
Trail braking is the rear brake. That is an important distinction.
When I went from a sport-touring bike, the CB750F, to a full on sport bike with integrated braking, I didn't change my cornering technique and found no problem with that.
In earlier MSF Advanced Rider classes, they were anti-trail braking. In fact, my final riding score was dinged a point for using the brake in a turn. Then a year or two later, it's part of their curriculum.
The "fast guy" practice was to use the rear brake throughout the corner and pour on the power. With the power on full, you release the brake and it supposedly would gain you some time over the other guy. Not sure how well it worked but...
Dennis, I know there is a lot of different twists twists to the term "trail braking", but just about all I have read and watched says it is the front brake.
The best way to explain it is shown in the YouTube video below
To back up just a little, what got me looking into this was after looking at comments on another website discussing a crash when a rider was going into a turn "to hot" and all of the factors that come into play in order to correct the line and not cross the yellow line or run off the road.
I also just finished reading a Kindler version book entitled "Cornering Confidence: The Formula for 100% Control in Curves" It wasn't all that great but it did go into using a two-fingered approach to rolling off the throttle with 2 fingers while rolling onto the front brake with the other two fingers going into a turn.
The author also talks about body positioning a bit and I will try it too. We all know that the bike will go where you look, but he also mentions a "kiss the mirror" approach by rotating your upper body some and leaning (probably not the right word) towards it as well.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to say, one way or the other, that braking of any kind is the best way to do things in a turn, but the topic got me curious enough to spend about 2 days researching all I could on the subject.
The author also talks about body positioning a bit and I will try it too. We all know that the bike will go where you look, but he also mentions a "kiss the mirror" approach by rotating your upper body some and leaning (probably not the right word) towards it as well.
Dragging a front brake in a corner changes the direction of force the front tire sees.
No brake, tire sees force roughly perpendicular to the direction of travel.
Add some brake moves that angle forward.
A
Tire contact patch is oval in shape, narrowest perpendicular to the sidewalls.
Moving the angle forward exposes more patch to the road.
I did my first group ride in Illinois, after having moved here from Ohio, and one of the guys I talked with over breakfast was very familiar with the front brakes function in trail braking, but he also mentioned that there are not a lot of occasions where you really need to use it on the street.
During today's ride I also got more familiar with doing the 2-finger approach with front brake lever and throttle and, after 20 or 30 occasions, I realized how natural the movement feels.
My personal method is to feather the front brake then let off as I feather the rear brake once I enter the turn... Once I pass through the apex I roll the throttle. Of course these days I'm not in too big of a hurry, and I don't try to scrape the pegs any longer... :|
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