I always used trail braking even before I knew what trail braking was. The bike is much more stable entering corners while trail braking ✌🏻 great video as always 😊
Trail braking is not "entering corners" it's braking **IN** corners. If the bend is a constant radius (and let's be honest, most are) why do want to slow down while you are in the the bend? If you can safely take the first third at a certain speed why are you slowing down for the middle of the bend?
@@goon_eg1089 WHY are you braking for the 1st half? If you managed to safely ride the 1st 10% of the bend at speed 'x' why don't you continue to ride the next 40% at the same speed?
@@MotorSportsFan46 well if it's down Hill, I have no engine brake, u can't see through the corner In the pitch black. It's a tool in ur belt. I can't just chop the throttle cus it's two stroke, for the last 2 years, one finger on the brake 247, half the time I'm not even conscious of my braking cos I don't think about it
I think in general it is the irrational psychological fear of 'if' you put too much pressure on the front brake the bike will spontaneously do a stoppie or flip you over. Same thing with bicycle riders, I've seen more than a few delivery guys just lock up and slide the rear and proceed to smash into a car or pedestrian without using the front.
You mentioned one critical aspect of trail braking that I hope ever ridder who is new to it will take very seriously: The need to first practice in a controlled and safe environment. Trail braking is a very useful technique but mistakes while learning can lead to accidents. The risks are much smaller if the ridder respects the initial rule (practice a lot in a controlled environment before using it in open roads).
I have learned it on the road, simply by slowly going from engine & before-corner-breaking-only to trailbraking, gradualy advancing to more speed And harder breaking. If you are not a coplete idiot, you can learn IT safely on the road too.
Your explanation is a massive over simplification and ignores some really important forces that makes what you are proposing potentially dangerous. I'll start with the bits that I (mostly) agree with... 1, Trail Braking is an important skill that all riders should learn. If you are in a decreasing radius turn you will need the ability to reduce speed the further you go into the bend. This would be an appropriate use for trail braking on the road. It would also be required if you need to slow for a slower vehicle or stop for an obstacle even if it's not a decreasing radius. 2, Being on the brakes up to the turn in point does indeed shorten the wheelbase and sharpen the steering angle. The difference it makes might be important on the track where you are shaving hundredths of a second in each corner but it is utterly irrelevant for the road. 3, Being on the brakes up to the turn in point does indeed push the tyre into the road surface, which increases grip. However that is only true while the bike is upright, as soon as you start to lean some of the force is trying to push the front wheel out from under you and the further you lean the greater that shear force gets and the more likely you are to loose the front. Now for the bits where you ignored reality, got it wrong or were deliberately misleading... 4, You showed a great clip of some halfwit stamping on the rear brake and losing it. Where was the clip that showed an equally incompetent rider grabbing a fist full of front brake? That is wilfully misleading. Applying a little bit of back brake is really useful to tighten your line if you have misjudged a bend. A situation where adding front brake tends to stand the bike up, forcing you wider still. Also if getting off the bike is the only option I'd rather lock the rear than the front, it hurts less. 5. You said that being on the front brake puts the suspension in the middle of the travel. That definitely wrong! The static sag from the weight of bike and rider will give you plenty of room to extend the forks over a depression. The act of cornering compresses the forks further due to centripetal force. Add brakes and now you are running out of travel to soak up bumps and are therefore more likely to break traction. 6. You showed clips of racers braking into the apex but didn't point out what they were doing with their line through the bend i.e. they are making a 'V' out of it. Effectively making a longer 'constant' radius bend into a shorter 'decreasing' radius bend so that they can stand the bike and get onto the fat part of the tyre to drive out. Again this is important to shave lap time on a track but stupid and dangerous on the road where you are likely to have oncoming traffic crossing the centreline on a bend. So in conclusion, Trail Braking is an important skill to master for situations where you need to slow down in a bend e.g. a decreasing radius. However it is utterly pointless for constant or increasing radius bends on the road where SAFETY SHOULD TAKE PRIORITY. If you need to trail brake for those bends you are going too fast, save it for the track! RANT OVER. BTW, I really enjoy your content. I just think that in this case you got it wrong.
Trail braking should be taught from Day One of motorcycle riding rather than Slow, Look, Crash, and Burn...oops, I mean Slow, Look, Press, and Roll. SLPR is fine for speeds under 25 MPH, but it's a dangerous practice in my opinion at road and highway speeds. Trail braking is a game changer for safer riding! Thanks for the great video.
Every video that teaches trail braking with the front brakes should be removed from the internet. This is exactly who new riders dump their bikes and experienced riders dont need to be taught this.
I have trouble with that since I got MT-07. The amount of engine breaking on this bike is ridiculous - if I trail break enough to load the suspension I just... stop mid corner. Am I to break and accelerate at the same time? Never had that issue on MT-03.
Yes. You can use maintenance braking and maintenance throttle at the same time to keep the forks loaded through the apex before trailing off the brakes and rolling on the throttle to stand the bike up and exit the turn. Obviously the precise amount of maintenance braking and throttling depends on the speed the turn radius the conditions and the road grade (uphill downhill or level). Uphill you might need less braking and downhill you might need less throttle. The point is to keep the forks compressed and the wheelbase shortened and the front contact patch enlarged until you're ready to come out of the lean. This requires deft and deliberate application of force to the control surface and total participation in the various stages of each turn. This approach is hard to make second nature but can't be unlearned. And it's controversial to use maintenance braking and maintenance throttle together since there's a huge lot that can go wrong.
@@paulvixie8668 So... I can do both but it's a high level skill. If I was to train solely trail breaking for now, should I let go of the brake quicker or try to accelerate more before entering the corner?
@@cprn. it's extremely rare to want to accel into a corner. at speed limits above 30MPH you will almost always have to slow down at a corner compared to the non-corner ("straight section") you approach from. brake with both wheels, mixing in some engine compression in the rear if you wish (i almost always do.) as you start your lean you should be at cornering speed for that corner. you can trail off the front brake at that moment ("tip-in"), or a second or so later, but you can't wait for the apex to finish front brake trail-off unless and until you have separately learned the controversial combination of maintenance braking and maintenance throttle. this sounds far more complicated than it will feel.
Glad to see you covered this technique, it's something EVERY intermediate rider needs to learn and perfect, I don't think pure beginners should try it until they are comfortable on a motorcycle. Once you "get it" the technique keeps you safe and in control on all corners. I practice trail-braking every day on my commutes.
This here might be the main reason trail braking isn't taught at licensing riding-schools (those that give you the permit). They don't want to take on the responsibility of accidents during their courses. Doing all braking before entering a corner thou leaves you with no options when something unforeseen happens. Which is almost always the case.
You are wrong about beginners. It is a proven fact in training that learning something one way initially then having ti learn a new and different way is much more difficult than just learning the better way in the beginning. I teach high performance driving and overcoming drivers' bad learned habits is always more difficult than teaching a new driver the correct way from the start. This is especially true when teaching trail braking in a car.
@@goon_eg1089 Trailbraking can be done with 1 finger or 4 fingers. There are no absolutes when learning which fingers to use for the front brake. Dexterity is what must be learned. Some people do that better with 1 finger, some do it better with 3 or 4 fingers, it all depends upon the individual person.
@@briangc1972 a brand new rider is more likely to lowside using four, riding dirt requires 1 or 2. You can see that the majority of lowside wrecks involve panicking while grabbing the front with all 4.
He was over simplifying that subject. Rear brake trail braking is better at tucking the rear wheel for tighter turning. Some turns are better when front trail braking (downhill corners) and some are better taken using rear trail braking. Practice and learn how to do both.
i startet doing it in my first saison and always thought it was wrong because everyone kept saying don´t break in the corners but in the end it was right and made me faster
That's probably because you can steer your bike well and make good lines. A lot of riders can't lean the bike quickly. They have to turn in too early, as a result. Taking this early line puts them on a bad angle, so they need to continue braking into a corner to make it through safely. A good rider trail brakes on a track, where he turns in early in some corners on purpose to pass or to make the corner shorter. A bad rider trail brakes everywhere, all the time. He turns in early even when he shouldn't, but he has no other option because he can't lean his bike very quickly.
It's a simple physics:the closer you get to the center of gravity (earth), it becomes easier to control and more stable. That's why when you trailbraking you can turn easier and effortless because your front end dives closer to the earth. Trailbraking becomes my 2nd nature now thankfully
Not sure that this is the entire reason, though. When maintaining speed, the bike self-stabilizes. You know how some people say that you only start countersteering a bike above a certain speed, like 15mph or so? You can argue the semantics of what countersteering is, but there's a change in the way the steering feels and acts once you pass this line. And to accept the popular sentiment on this, now you have to actively countersteer the bike. The bike wants to stand up on its own once above this speed. No matter how fast you are going, once you stop giving throttle and use light brakes, you're somewhat back to the way the steering feels and acts at low speed. It's no longer self-stabilizing. The bike doesn't want to stand back up if you let go of the bars. That's a reason that it feels more effortless. There's less, maybe even no torque required on the bars to keep the bike leaned. This might feel more controllable and predictable to you. But steering while maintaining speed is just as controllable and predictable. It's just different and has several advantages.
Wait, this is what I used to do even when I had my little 125 cc Honda, I still do it on my NS200 every day, before entering corners. I always play with brakes modulation and suspension dampening while cornering intuitively, I didn't even know there is name for it ! Same thing happened with me when I learned about rev matching, I've been doing perfect rev matching and clutch less shifting in all my 4 bikes, whithout knowing there's a name for it. What's happening, are people oversimplyfying/over explaining things for dummies?
I was taught always brake before the turn while upright and straight, then slowley accelerate thru the corner as accelerating added stability. They used the same reasons, in part you mentioned. Hitting brake in the turn tries to stand you up. Also losing the rear wheel is usually not a big deal and recoverable, but losing the front wheel is almost always a bad day, so dont hit the brakes on the front during a turn and increase the risk of losing the front wheel. If I ever heard trail braking it was riding the rear brake while doing advanced low speed stuff like tight u-turns. Just kind of finding this out now is a big change I'll have to reprogram nearly 15 years of riding time. It makes sense to me all of it, kind of sucks they are TEACHING the opposite to new riders and they someone like me who rides alone and not on the track, mastered that over years of riding without knowing better. Generally I try to not go crazy on turns on the street, mostly becuase of unknown road conditions and also traffic not expecting me to have much higher speed on a turn than the cars. But I'll have to start practicing this right away.
Trail braking is most useful when you turn in early. For racers, they do this on purpose, because their track is so wide this sometimes makes a big enough shortcut to shave time. For street riders, your "track" is too narrow to turn in earlier than necessary on purpose. This will just put you on a bad angle. Street trail braking is most useful for riders who can't flick the bike. These riders have to turn the bike in slower, so they have to turn in early and put themselves on a bad angle. Riders who can steer their bike quicker/better will hardly ever trail brake on street. They will turn in later and quicker and take a wider more circular line through corners. Their bike will be pointed in the direction of the corner the entire way, rather than turning too little at first and needing to catch up later.
It’s great that we can now use the changes in geometry as a positive. For many years manufacturers were trying to develop alternative solutions to traditional forks🍴🍷🏍️
At 1:35 where you tell the story of entering a corner too fast and panic braking, you recall that upon braking, the bike immediately stood up - but that's not how a bike reacts to braking. What might have happened is that you stood the bike up because you had been trained to fear the loss of traction when braking while leaning. At least that's what happened to me before learning to trail brake. Keep safe!
"Twist of the Wrist" a book by Keith Code says, get all your braking done before you reach the corner and get on the gas (throttle) as soon as possible through the corner to load up the rear wheel. Two very different approaches.
When you're watching bike racing it's often difficult to understand exactly what they're doing - but watching a video of a guy called Rideezy on the Nurburgring, riding a road bike and taken from the car behind, really helped me to understand how long a good rider stays on the brakes through a corner. You can see his brake lights on until he accelerates away. And geez - he is quick. Makes the hairs on the back of your neck stand up!
Just watched all of his videos with Nurburgring in the title, and they're all from FPOV. Looking at his speedometer, I only saw him obviously "trail brake" in a few corners, and in most of them it was because there was a slower car ahead him.
Racers know that you should always be braking or under power (accelerating) in a corner. No coasting, no engine idling through, either brake or accelerate.
@@briangc1972 I would be more careful how you say that. I would change your last word from "accelerate" to "throttle," so it includes maintenance throttle.
@@mildyproductive9726 Maintenance throttle in real life is slightly accelerating. I know no racer who truly maintains zero velocity change at any point on the track. The data from our dashes would clearly show it and I've never seen it.
@@briangc1972 There are a variety of reasons it is should be easy to hold maintenance throttle on level road, keeping a slightly positive drive on the chain in a corner, without accelerating. There are a variety of losses. Air resistance. Mechanical friction from the engine and transmission. Tire resistance from deforming every revolution to form the contact patch. And while leaning/turning, there are 2 more. You have losses from slip angle. And you have decrease in radius of the tires as you lean and the contact patch moves closer to the rim, which allows for some actual increase in rpms without any increase in speed. When going uphill, it's even more easy. When going uphill, you should be decelerating while in maintenance throttle. If you are really concerned with losing grip, you'll lose speed while keeping slight positive drive on the chain. Downhill is slightly different. You don't want to continually accelerate. So you have to use front brake to maintain speed. It's easiest to minimize engine braking by staying in a relatively high gear. And that's usually ok, because you don't need as much power on the exit, when going downhill.
I’m a non rider but looking to get a bike, I hear about different cornering techniques. My question is can you trail brake and counter steer together? If you’re braking before the push of the handle bar wont that upset the bike?
Yes you can do both together. You generally need to countersteer to start the bike to lean even when you are braking. But now that the bike has some lean and you're braking, the bike is not stable. So it will fall slowly deeper into the lean on its own, in a decaying death spiral, until you do something. This slow rate of lean angle increase is often enough on its own to get you through corners at relatively slow speeds, within the speed limit, along with the continued deceleration also tightening the turn radius. If you are going into a corner faster, you will need to make the bike lean faster than this in order to make it. You must actively countersteer the bike to do this. In this case, yes you could give steering input while braking, but it makes the bike's response more delayed and difficult to control. On a very quick steering bike like a track bike, this isn't a big deal, because the steering response is lightning quick to begin with. On most bikes, this is not ideal. But if you need to lean deep in street riding, you need to let off the brakes really quick anyhow. The street is so narrow that to stay in your lane at high entry speed, you need to lean the bike super quick to that deep lean angle, and you want the brakes to be off by then. It's not like on a wide race track where you can turn the bike in much earlier and tighten your line more gradually as you let off the brakes. So even with the track bike, you won't trail brake very much in street riding, unless you're bad at steering and tend to turn in too early and slowly. It's difficult to learn how to lean some bikes over really quickly. So trail braking can be a crutch. It's better if you can learn how to steer better, but not everyone can do it.
Thank you. I can't stand these videos, selling trail braking for the street like an infomercial. If you find trail braking very useful on street, you're turning the bike in way too early. A good racer would almost never find trail braking useful out in the canyons, no matter how fast he wanted to take the corners. About the only exception is if he was actually dumb enough to pass other vehicles midcorner while doing so.
@@mildyproductive9726 i do use trail braking on my motorcycle but I use it for the wrong reasons. Only when i come into a corner to hot bc i started braking to late, then i stay on the brakes partually trough the corner. (So due to rider error and trying to not crash). If actively used on the street, you are using the street as a track... In short, we agree with each other 😅😁
There is always at least one good reason to trail brake briefly, when cornering fast and braking late and hard, even on a narrow dirt track like the video says at the end. To smooth out the suspension so the forks don't bounce and rock the bike. Your only mistake is to start braking too late for the corner, but you're basically cornering perfectly, otherwise. That's not really a mistake. It's just riding too close to the edge and handling it perfectly! There could be other reasons it helps, but most of them are avoidable with sufficient skill. Like turning in too early. These mistakes are better avoided. That's where the infomercial problem comes in. These videos suggest that riders should be doing it like this to corner better and faster. If riders try to trail brake for ALL of these Billy Mayes-esque reasons, they could be producing these scenarios more regularly or even on purpose. Seeing bad habits as good ones. You find it useful to trail brake on the track for additional reasons to this. But even on the track you don't usually need to do it for this one. Because even when racing, you don't usually brake that hard and late except when you pushed just a little too hard! You almost never trail brake on the street, because it makes you safer and leaves the most grip for the speed, when you take corners correctly like you. Not because you ride so well, you are still safe when not trail braking. I think that's a mistake these videos will promote. I hope this makes sense of it for others who might read this comment. You seem to already know what you're doing!
I stopped using trail braking because on the road if you load to much the front, you will have the front to stiff and also this will make corners wide. While you brake just remeber to downshift, this deceleration is enough to "keep" the front loaded without compressing to much the suspension and let the front copy the road. On track is ok,because you know that the track is clean and flat. The tyre has a limit and it is proportional to the weight is carrying, you can also make a corner with the front not touching the ground, because the grip on the rear is enough to rise the bike. If you enter a corner braking, you are taking away the grip used to make the corner. 1/3 should be dedicated to braking, 1/3 Neutral with throttle control, 1/3 acceleration.
Number one reason to use trail braking: taking advantage of the traction circle. You can use 70% of maximum braking force AND 70% of maximum lean force simultaneously. Not just 50% and 50%. There are a million explanations of the traction circle available. Top racers are all using the traction circle. Number two reason to use trail braking: the majority of turns in the United States are decreasing radius in, increasing radius out (DRIIRO). One very reasonable riding style is to lower your speed as your radius goes down. Perfect for trail braking. As stated in the video loading up the forks before corner is beneficial as it matches the centrifugal force loading in the corner. Motorcycles generally come with the compression damping set lightly for comfort. Cranking this up allows you to transfer force to the front wheel faster under braking. You can eliminate that 1 second of lag where you don't dare get smoothly and firmly on the brakes. I always keep the compression and rebound damping set the same. You want to plan your way through the corner. Plan your ride, ride your plan. Don't correct your way through the corner. Too fast, too slow, too fast, etc.. Trail braking in, accelerating out is a lot like timid in, courageous out (not a plan). Happy riding!
So trailbraking is using the brake to slow down before the turn but instead of releasing the brake completely before you enter the turn you just simply slowly release the brake while you're in the turn. This is how I ride mountain bikes too.
I think if you ride bike a lot, you will starting trail braking without learning it from anywhere. It is a natural process of optimization that our brain does. Also from mistakes. I remember my brother braked hard on turn with bit of gravels on the road, and we both fell down with some injury. It is still stuck in my brain which doesn't allow me apply brakes during cornering.
a bit off topic, but is there any reason why you didn't swap to Protapers on the new MT? been looking into it and found your second MT with it, but no longer on ur third MT, and was just curious if there was a reason behind not going that way again.
I was taught not to use the front brake once I was leaning so to eliminate front wheel slip on gravel, oil or whatever. But brake and roll definitely doesn't work all the time on windy roads. Thanks for the easy tute
Very cool information on trail braking! Here's a subject for a video if you're interested. Do you know the object or objective of Counter Steering on a motorcycle? If you do not I very highly recommend you learn about it and how to use it effectively. I won't go into explaining what Counter Steering is here, it would take too long. You can find information about if you research it.
@@ChaosCauses It's hard to visualise the first part (the bike leaning in the opposite direction) - you'd probably have to record yourself going straight into the camera before turning in the last second - but the front wheel correcting itself to follow the turn can be shown on a shopping cart or an office chair.
I'm so sick of constantly hearing or watching people talk about this topic. Enough already. Yes. I use the technique all the time but so tired of hearing it. It's overrated. Just ride within your comfort zone.
Note that bikes with antidive such as BMW telelever and BMW duolever do not shorten their wheel base when braking, though the contact patch does still expand. Great video, thanks.
@@Daniel-dj7fhdo you cover the front brake 247? You have to learn to ride with 1 or 2 fingers covering the brake, don't start braking until that is locked in to your muscles, roll on and off with leaning technique. I don't even think about braking anymore. I'v had people dash infront coming up to a red light, doesn't phase me, being a mind reader also helps.
Where I am at there’s lots of mountains and some bends there will surprise you and you’ll end up in opposing traffic even if you’re only going 30 mph. Like you said it’s not necessary if you limit your speed but the ride is definitely less enjoyable if you’re always braking.
What if you don't go 100 mph, if the speed is say 80 kmh, I'd lose speed mid-corner and have to go to the throttle again. Rarely do I come into a corner at such speeds that I can hold the break throughout the entire bend. I'm confused :) If I break, I break and I lose the speed momentarily, if I continue breaking I'll stall and will have to open a throttle quickly after.
This is what confuses me about trail braking too. I guess I or we are using too much engine braking into a corner? As I don’t need to keep applying the pressure of the brakes as I lean as I’ve already slowed enough… I’ve not found info on what I’m doing wrong yet, only how to do it correctly but maybe it doesn’t work so well on my R3?
@@Teocyn I've been told you're not going fast enough. That's ridiculous. So I need to go into a corner like a madman just so I can correctly apply the technique?! That can't be right.
These videos are misleading. Don't bother yourselves over it. Racers do it when they are making a wide corner shorter (and more dangerous) by turning in early. Or when passing on the inside. They are still braking early corner, because they know their line is going to get tighter ahead. They made it that way by turning in too early. They will finish letting off the brakes and rolling on neutral throttle as they finish leaning all the way when they get to the end of the corner that they made tighter on purpose. If you want to see how useful trail braking can be for street riding, turn in too early on purpose. Get on the inside line before you can see the exit. You will feel the need to decelerate in this scenario. You can't see very far through the corner from here. And imagine you see the curve gets tighter ahead. You have no room to lean more and turn tighter until you get there, because you're already on the inside line way too early. Now you see where it is useful. And since you guys don't turn in too early, you can now forget about trail braking until you go race on a track that is much wider than the road. A lot of riders have trouble leaning the bike quickly enough, so they get nervous and turn in too early. They love trail braking on the street.
Not sure about others, but I have been doing this driving a car, foot on the brakes to shed speed, and slowly release through corners, gas on the straight. On my motorcycle, I do rear and front brakes to shed speed on the approach, slowly release the front depending on how slow I want to take the curve, only release the front brake when I am ready to go straight
"only release front brake when ready to go straight." You can hold a steady radius and lean angle while in maintenance throttle. As long as you can achieve this line with adequate leftover space to your inside, you will be fine. When you can see the exit, and that it's clear of oncoming traffic, now you can tighten your line (with a steering input) to clip the inside line. No brakes needed. There are lots of reasons you should want to trail the brakes deeper into many corners in your car which don't apply to your motorcycle. You car has much less engine braking (power to weight ratio AND your car is automatic). The engine braking of your car is on the front tires. So as you taper off brakes, you are left with just a slight amount of front braking. All good. \ Your bike has much more engine braking, and it's on the rear tire. Your bike is also much more sensitive to too much rear braking, because of the very short wheelbase. So as you hold just very light front brake, your rear braking can be quite a bit higher just from the engine, causing you to prematurely lose rear traction while leaned over. Also, there's less reason to do this on a motorcycle. In the car, you will upset your suspension if you turn the car too quick. You HAVE to turn in a little slower, and thus a little earlier, in your car, to avoid tilting/rolling/yaw. So you might as well taper off brakes as you do this. On your bike you can wait and turn in later and quicker to take a better, faster, safer line. And no trail braking needed.
I think "brake before the corner" is the safe way to get a new rider safely around corners... it makes a few assumption (the big one being that the rider will be going SLOW through the corner). The miss IMO in the "learning how to ride" training regimen is that there's no "once you're at the level that upsetting the suspension with that technique causes a problem you NEED to learn how to do this" point. It's pretty much up to you to decide when to make the upgrade in your skills.
It's not necessarily faster cornering speed, though, where you should benefit from trail braking. If you can steer quick enough to take proper lines for street corners, you still shouldn't benefit from trail braking even when taking corners at 50 degree lean angles. That doesn't bother the suspension. It's when you start to brake insanely late while taking corners fast that you might benefit from trail braking to smooth the suspension. And even then, it's only when you really messed up and nearly crashed that it would make a difference.
