What exactly is trail braking and how do you do it? I believe I've seen it when watching some road races. I've seen the guys appear to slide the back tire into the turn and then get on the throttle as the tire grabs and fly through the corner. I know this may be way off so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Alstare Guy said:
What exactly is trail braking and how do you do it? I believe I've seen it when watching some road races. I've seen the guys appear to slide the back tire into the turn and then get on the throttle as the tire grabs and fly through the corner. I know this may be way off so any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.



Trailbraking is where a racer/rider brakes while going into a turn, racers will sometime trailbrake all the way to the apex...using the front brake..This technique takes lots of practice, and a good feel for what the front wheel is doing...definitly not someting you want to do on city streets, one wrong move and you'll be on your back side..

Now that's some scary sh*&. Hold the front brake to the apex of a curve. Trust me you'll never catch me doing that on any city street. Thanks for the info.

Its very impressive. They are braking right at the limit, braking so hard that the rear doesn't really have any traction and appears to slide though the turn. Many racers use trailbraking to gain a better angle to square off the turn. Hayden uses it very often. Another rider I enjoy watching is Arron Yates after he makes a mistake. Its like he just decides that he has nothing to lose so he puts everything on the line. I just think trailbraking looks cool.

So trailbraking involves using the front break only and getting on the throttle up to the apex and then letting off the front break to accelerate out of the turn??? or both, but more of the front break. I want to learn !!!!

It is anytime that you actually go into the corner while braking, front or rear brakes. Be careful however if you use the rear, that is a low or high side waiting to happen. Trailbraking is tricky because of the effect that it has on the handling of the bike when you do it. If you start into a turn and realise that your entrance speed is higher than what you might like it to be, LIGHTLY start to apply your front brake. The first thing that you will notice is that the bike will try to straighten up out of its lean. If you have entered a corner to fast, you are going to have to counteract this by literally forcing the bike to lean harder.

Next time you go out for a ride, give it a try. Make sure that you are using your head and not trying to do it too fast at first. Start out taking a corner that really requires little effort to take, then as you go into the corner, LIGHTLY squeeze the front brake, and observe what the bike does. It will surprise you the first time. This is a very useful skill on the street, once you have a good feel for it, and a lot of practice doing so as not to panic and lock the front or rear.

I think a track might be a safer place to practice this http://www.gixxer.com/forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif Roads have a tendency to have curbs, which bust bikes up reall good when they lowside into them (cracking your engine in neat ways).

I understand that completely, as I know all to well the conditions of the roads in Ohio are horrible. On the flip side though, I am not talking about trying to slide the rear in or anything that extreme, because that is just asking for a lowside like you said. However trailbraking is an invaluable tool that will help to keep you out of trouble that might be cause by misjuding an entrance speed, gravel or something else in a corner, or a cager pulling out in front of you. Trailbraking can be used in a lot of instances, very effectively I might ad. My advice is that this is a skill that everyone needs to know how to do. If you have access to a track, that is definatly a much safer place to learn this skill, if not, just use your common sense and wear your gear.

article by kieth code
"Trail-Braking and Straight up Braking

Trail-Braking

Ever since I first investigated trail-braking and graphed it and set up some guidelines for it in the first “A Twist of the Wrist” book in 1981 I've mainly focused on its more basic aspect, that of a rider’s Sense of speed.

Sense of Speed

Sense of Speed is a rider’s ability to accurately judge differences and similarities in speed from one pass through a corner to the next time they encounter it. No matter how or when a rider is braking his Sense of Speed directs the whole activity. This is the irreducible part of the rider/bike/road combination which must be in good working order.

Following right on the heels of this sense is the rider’s Sense of Traction and I'll talk about that a little later in this.

Suspension Transitions

One of the other main issues that revolve around braking is the suspension action. The compression and extension that can occur with either 1) straight up braking or 2) trailing brakes into the corner.

Cornering enthusiasts both feel it and understand that making the transition from on to off the brake(s) and entering the turn should be as seamless as possible in order not to upset the suspension (read traction).

On a telemetry graph it would look like a continuous line as the rider released the brake and the cornering forces took over--that goes for either method of braking.

A Developed Sense

Now if you look at this aspect closely you will see that there is actually another sense which we develop to comply with this demand to make that transition a smooth one.

In order to make this work out we first of all must be aware of the bike’s dive attitude (how far down is the nose of the bike). In order now to make it successful the rider must also be aware of the compression the cornering forces will provide for the speed he has entered the corner. How much will it compress from that force?

Compression Prediction

A straight line braker’s ability to reckon where the suspension compression will be once he is into the turn plus his timing of letting off the brakes and turning to maintain the compression at that level have to be very good.

Feel It

The trail-braking rider feels his way into the turn more on his sense of traction and has both forces (braking compression on the suspension as well as the cornering forces on it) acting on the bike at the same time so his job is simplified to a great degree.

It more or less eliminates the precision timing and sense of the bike’s pitched-forward attitude that it takes to do it the other way. Trail-braking approaches the lean, speed, traction more gradually and the rider gets continuous feedback from them. This is also good.

Quick Flick Judgement

With the straight line method the rider has to also determine by his feel and prediction just how quick his flick into the corner needs to be to maintain the suspension compression smoothly. A lot of multi-tasking is going on here: It’s more difficult.

When you realize that this all has to be figured out just BEFORE the straight line braker does it you see why the two methods are so different.

Commitment

Here is another way of saying it. The trail braking method provides the rider with feedback as he transitions and the straight line method doesn't allow you feedback until after you already committed and completed it and there ain't no fixing it, at least not on that lap. Commitment is the key word here.

There is a high degree of confidence in yourself and your prediction of the forces and your other senses of speed and traction and your ability to quick turn the bike that are essential before you'd be willing to make this level of commitment.

Other Benefits

Beside all that, there is another interesting benefit to learning the straight up/quick flick style. It provides a rider with valuable feedback about tire traction and cornering loads.

When you quick flick the bike with poor timing you get a sudden load on the suspension and the tires. This is the thing that riders get into their heads will make them crash–usually they think they are going to loose the front and go down. They get spooked from that sudden load.

The feeling of the sudden load came from releasing the brakes too soon before they flicked it. The front end comes up from the release and then dives again from the flick in. If you break that down you'll see that the load, while it may have a little higher peak force, wasn't anymore than they would have experienced if they had made that transition into the turn with perfect control timing. The sudden load came from their error not because it is part of the style of riding.

This is another one of those things that can become confusing to any rider. They have simply misidentified the real cause of the sudden loading. It could and often is enough to make riders think that they are going to lose traction or crash by quick flicking the bike.

Gauging The Traction

I think that the facts and the physics of the matter are this: If you had the front tire right at 110% traction and you flicked it in and maintained that load that you would be OK and have a killer turn entry speed. You would not have violated the traction limit of the tire (they like to slide a bit for max traction in any case) and would have learned an enormous amount about traction limits and feel for them. It’s that commitment thing that makes this difficult.

Which Comes First

I have heard car schools talk about trail braking for decades and most of them teach it as an essential skill. I have heard that Freddie's school curriculum focuses very much on
trail-braking.I have heard schools of thought that say that trailing the brakes is an “advanced” skill.I have heard schools of thought that say you will get passed if you don't learn to trail. I have heard many say that you can't go really fast if you don't trail brake.

That all may very well be true, I don't know everything. What I do know is this: Once a rider can successfully and confidently do the straight line method; once he can do it with flawless timing and clean seamless transitions and he trusts himself and is willing to make these commitments, learning the trail-in style is a piece of cake. Doing it in the other order is not as easy. In the end, your skill to use either technique, as it
applies to specific corners, is the important part.

Keith"

Ok that was waaay interesting and I think i'll even understand some of it the time after the next time I read it.

I got my suspsension tuned yesterday and got walked through what everything did and meant and all that and I asked the guy about trail breaking and he described it to me as like when you're breaking at a stop like or sign and you don't just mash the breaks and keep them mashed till you're completely stopped cause you would jerk to a stop. You mash on the breaks at first and then as you're going slower you're needing less break to stop and you "feather" out the breaks till you're completely stopped and using no breaks. He said the idea of doing that up to or into a corner(someone correct me or add to) is to keep the front end "dived" as long as possible in the corner cause I guess, for some reason, the bike handles better with the front end compressed like that.

So, optimally, in a corner, You break less and less up to the apex to keep the nose down? and then accelerate out of the rest of the corner? Just curious.

Also if someone could explain why the bike handles better with the nose down like that.

mitch

LV Mitch said:
Ok that was waaay interesting and I think i'll even understand some of it the time after the next time I read it.

I got my suspsension tuned yesterday and got walked through what everything did and meant and all that and I asked the guy about trail breaking and he described it to me as like when you're breaking at a stop like or sign and you don't just mash the breaks and keep them mashed till you're completely stopped cause you would jerk to a stop. You mash on the breaks at first and then as you're going slower you're needing less break to stop and you "feather" out the breaks till you're completely stopped and using no breaks. He said the idea of doing that up to or into a corner(someone correct me or add to) is to keep the front end "dived" as long as possible in the corner cause I guess, for some reason, the bike handles better with the front end compressed like that.

So, optimally, in a corner, You break less and less up to the apex to keep the nose down? and then accelerate out of the rest of the corner? Just curious.

Also if someone could explain why the bike handles better with the nose down like that.

mitch



Actually, the bike will handle better with a weight ratio of 40/60 frt. to rear in a turn...However, a bike will tip in quicker with more weight on the front..then it has to be changed by getting on the gas.

What about the angle the bike is at. If the weight is 40/60 to the rear and the bike's geometry is set nose down then it'll handle best? or what.

If the rear ride height is raised, or the front forks raised in the triples, the bike will steer "quicker." It will turn in to a corner much quicker, because of the weight bias towards the front, and the change in the steering geometry that results in either of the two mentioned changes. This however comes at the cost of stability. The more the back is raised, or the forks are raised through the triples, the more unstable the bike will become. For most strret riding applications, neither of these need to be changed. They are set up from the factory with a very optimal setup for both turn in and stability. Just work with the preload, reboound, and compression settings for now. However if you plan to go to the track, you might want to consider doing one, or both of these.

Very nice article by Keith. I didnt find anything about trail braking in Twist of the Wrist books. If he makes the third one I think he will have to write A LOT about trail braking:biggrin.
Anyway when you get used to trail braking It can be a useful tool even on the street.

When you are fat, slow bike but have some balls... You learn to brake even around the apex. Is that trail braking?

Slap my right hand I'm at a 60/40. Say I'm at 100% my azz I never go through rear brakes. Shoes kidding me, right?
Shoes is not even working but the shift. You perch the pegs and get all comfortable there, but give me that crap is split the brakes is bRake out the find print you be finding (none); we do snot nose play percentages wit day brakes in my world.

OK, now I'm gonna go hide before I get Code did by him or his son ee boy, use is be being my tank slapping sit down and run in that corner; (IF) I be teaching class.

does anybody use this on the street to go faster or safer.
I need do ask a couble of questions.

It depends on how much traction you have. If there is a lot like on a track you can do it more and less on the streets. Being smooth with the controls is the key.

does anybody use this on the street to go faster or safer.
I need do ask a couble of questions.

Well, once you figure out how to do it, it just becomes another tool in your riding skill bag. Its not for all situations and does have its drawbacks on the street. Catching gravel, liquid or dirt while trailing a corner can be expensive.

.

does anybody use this on the street to go faster or safer.
I need do ask a couble of questions.

Knowing how to trailbrake = having good brake control

I do it out of habit sometimes during harder canyon rides but I am on the brakes very very lightly just enough to scrub off some speed for those decreasing radius turns.

Just remember this.... As your lean angle increases.... decrease your brake pressure. Or in other words as you're gradually leaning into the turn you should start to inversely let go of the brakes.

This is a must if you late brake into a turn but I personally think it should be used with less extremity in most corners because I notice that it makes the bike more stable. In order to brake and then turn into a corner smoothly you need to use some level of trail braking.

If you just suddenly let go of the brakes completely before turn-in you will upset the chassis.

Knowing how to trailbrake = having good brake control

I do it out of habit sometimes during harder canyon rides but I am on the brakes very very lightly just enough to scrub off some speed for those decreasing radius turns.

Just remember this.... As your lean angle increases.... decrease your brake pressure. Or in other words as you're gradually leaning into the turn you should start to inversely let go of the brakes.

This is a must if you late brake into a turn but I personally think it should be used with less extremity in most corners because I notice that it makes the bike more stable. In order to brake and then turn into a corner smoothly you need to use some level of trail braking.

If you just suddenly let go of the brakes completely before turn-in you will upset the chassis.
ok. I know the theory very well. i have read a lot of books and the above from keith.
Now if you ride the PACE and you almost never use the brakes on a ride, do you still trail brake? Know you are saying how can you trail brake if you are not using the brakes. Well the advantages staded above + the benefit of chainging the geometry of the bike are too good to be neclected.
I have tryed it on the road and it is just too complicated to do. I am using trail braking when i am going very fast and use the brakes the problem is when riding the PACE.

ok. I know the theory very well. i have read a lot of books and the above from keith.
Now if you ride the PACE and you almost never use the brakes on a ride, do you still trail brake? Know you are saying how can you trail brake if you are not using the brakes. Well the advantages staded above + the benefit of chainging the geometry of the bike are too good to be neclected.
I have tryed it on the road and it is just too complicated to do. I am using trail braking when i am going very fast and use the brakes the problem is when riding the PACE.

There are certain roads that you can ride the pace and there are certain roads where you have to use the brakes. On really tight technical roads I will trail brake. And of course as you said if you're riding really fast (ie. on the track) then you would trail brake. But riding the pace = just flicking the bike into the turn. You don't need to use the brakes to settle the suspension. If you turn it in hard enough you will feel the bike compress and grip.

ok. thanks. i will just stop trying to use it when riding the pace.

You see those motocross bikes with slicks and they back the rear end in the corner and slide it in?... That is what I think, 'trail brake' means.

Or do you mean, you are on the brakes deep in the apex before you remove the brakes and accelerate out of the corner.

Which is it. Man, If I miss an apex I'm on the brakes, but I think I am on the gas before the apex is coming up. I've done my braking way is back dare someplace is.