Why You Need to Be Trail Braking | Motorcycle Trail Braking Explained

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I read this and thought it was a video about Trial Biking and why we should all be doing it.

Guess I won't be hopping over tables and fences any time soon!

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 1 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/cmdr_kazputin ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Jul 06 2018 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies

This channel looks pretty cool, thanks for sharing.

๐Ÿ‘๏ธŽ︎ 1 ๐Ÿ‘ค๏ธŽ︎ u/RayRay614 ๐Ÿ“…๏ธŽ︎ Jul 06 2018 ๐Ÿ—ซ︎ replies
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Some people say that trail braking should only be done on the racetrack but stick around we're going to explain why you should be trail braking everywhere. You may have heard people say the trail braking is a race track only technique, but we would argue that trail braking is even more important for the street rider. I can honestly say, for me personally, once I got my head around the concept it was one of the techniques that made some of the most dramatic improvements in my own riding. Trail braking helps the motorcycle change direction so that you can get into and out of corners more efficiently. But more importantly than that, trail braking gives riders many more options for dealing with unpredictable conditions and unfamiliar corners. When you enter into a corner too fast you have two choices; add more lean angle which increases risk, or slow down. But we've all been told that going to the brakes in a corner is dangerous. Trail braking is different. But first, what is trail braking? Well, in the context of motorcycling, trail braking is trailing off the front brake as the motorcycle begins leaning. You are braking past the point where the motorcycle tips in, with the focus being on the front brake. Applying the rear brake while the bike is leaned over is extremely risky, so for clarity, trail braking is primarily a front brake technique. Riders with motorcycles with linked brakes, fear not, your motorcycle will behave just fine for trail braking. and no, this is not just a sport bike thing either. Trail braking works on every kind of bike, from cruisers, touring bikes, adventure bikes, and even scooters. Now, I know, most beginner rider programs teach that you need to do the majority of the braking before the corner and then gradually accelerate through the rest of the turn. And if you learned to ride in America, you probably had the phrase "Slow, Look, Press, and Roll" drilled into you by your rider coach. But there are some real problems with this technique. First, if it's a blind corner and you don't know how tight it is, how do you know how much you need to slow, so that you can gradually accelerate through the rest of the turn? And if you don't know how tight it is, how can you possibly know how much you can accelerate before you're going too fast? Second, why would you want to accelerate when you can't see what's ahead? And finally, when you try to accelerate and turn you are actually fighting two opposing forces of physics. Let's talk about the physics part first. When we slow, the weight of the motorcycle shifts forward and the forks compress. When the forks compress, your wheelbase is shortened. The rake and trail numbers decrease, and the motorcycle becomes less stable in a straight line, and now wants to change direction. In effect, no matter what kind of motorcycle you're on when you apply the brakes, your motorcycle becomes more like a sport bike. Conversely, when we accelerate, the weight of the motorcycle shifts to the rear and the forks extend. The wheelbase becomes longer, and the rake and trail numbers increase. The motorcycle becomes more stable in that it wants to go straight. No matter what kind of bike you're on, when you accelerate it becomes more like a cruiser. Do you realize what this means? This means that we can manipulate the bike's geometry to make it behave the way we want it to. One of my favorite moments of teaching out at the racetrack, was when a student came up to me with a question. He said to me in frustration, "I just can't find a fast line through that corner." And I had to explain to him, there is no fast line through that corner, it's a slow corner. And herein lies the truth of motorcycling; the more gentle, or wider, the arc of the corner, the faster you can go through it. And the tighter the corner, the slower you must go. In addition to counter steering, we can use the brakes to help us change direction. Compressing the forks and altering the rake and trail to help the bike change direction, and slowing down, makes the circle smaller until we can see the exit of the corner. If the turn is tighter than we anticipated, or there's something unexpected in the corner, we are already slowing down. We are already on the brakes, so we have many options available to us. We can slow even further. We can alter our path of travel. And we may even be able to stop in the middle of the corner if we need to. If slowing alters the bike's geometry, and makes it want to change direction, and slowing makes that circle smaller; now is where we get to the fun part. We can use the throttle to make the bike straighten up - make the circle bigger, and drive out of the corner. This is the safest place to accelerate because we can see where we are going, and we are trying to go straight. Ideally, you should use the throttle to accelerate out of a corner and go just wide enough you end up on the outside of the corner. Just don't accelerate so earlier so aggressively that you end up running wide on corner exit. When you try to accelerate through an entire corner, you are giving the bike conflicting instructions. Accelerating alters the bikes geometry, telling the bike to go straight. You are gathering speed, which is increasing the radius of the corner, making the circle bigger. Not to mention, that accelerating when you can't see what's in front of you is what we would call "risky." Trail braking is working with the the motorcycles design and strengths to get to a corner with less risk and far more precision. Your past instructors, or other riders, may have told you that braking in a corner is extremely dangerous. And it is. Going to the brakes, especially just the rear brake, after the motorcycle is leaned over is extremely risky, and should be avoided if at all possible. But with trail braking, we're not going to the brakes mid corner. We go to the brake sooner, lighter, but carry the brakes for much longer. If you've watched our other video "Seven Tips to Being a Faster, Safer Rider" you may remember me saying "the fastest riders use the brakes the most." This is quintessentially what that means. As we near the corner entrance, we ease off the rear brake, and continue to drag, or trail, the front brake. And ideally, we continue trailing on that front brake, even if we're only using one percent of our total front brakes ability, until we arrive at the apex and we can see the exit of the corner. Ok, I know what some of you are thinking' you're thinking "I do that, but I coast into corners and I accelerate back out." That's good, but what do you do if the corner is tighter than you anticipated? Do you add more "coast?" By using the brakes, we are the ones in charge. We determine if we want to brake more or less. We have ultimate control over our rate of forward velocity. Coasting is engine braking, and engine braking is like braking with just the rear brake, which isn't so good. Not to mention that engine braking basically negates all of the bike geometry benefits we get from using the front brake. If this is brand-new to you and you want to start trying it out, start by using a squishy ball. Practice squeezing and releasing the ball slowly. Extend this practice to every input you give your motorcycle. It doesn't matter if we're moving the bike around in the garage, or heading into a blind corner. Practice always gently squeezing the lever. As you start practicing this on your day-to-day rides, don't go out and brake as hard as you can all the way to the apex of the corner. Start off by riding like you normally do. Slowing before the corner, but begin by simply releasing the front brake lever far more slowly than you normally do. This is a great way to more organically learn how the brakes affect the motorcycle, and become comfortable with these techniques slowly, instead of all at once. The tire can hold a lot of force, but not suddenly, if we get really good at adding and subtracting brake force in small increments, will get really good at never overcooking a corner, or running over that double yellow line again. We've included links to the outstanding book Sport Riding Techniques, we absolutely encourage you to pick up a copy. Also, if you want to go off the deep end of why and how this all works the way it does, the book Motorcycle Dynamics shows you the maths and equations and physics. We've also included some links to some credible performance riding schools that teach these skills. If you have any questions, or there's something you'd like us to cover in more detail, leave a comment. We read every comment and try to respond to as many as we can. Be sure to click like and subscribe. Thanks so much for watching, and ride well!
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Channel: CanyonChasers
Views: 2,201,632
Rating: 4.9044914 out of 5
Keywords: Trail, braking, trailbraking, trail braking, motorcycle, street, track, race, road, highway, canyon, corner, curve, turn, bike, cruiser, tour, adventure, sportsbike, sport, scooter, how to, save, dangerous, brake, ride, riding, tips, tricks
Id: gPE67XqGsV4
Channel Id: undefined
Length: 8min 55sec (535 seconds)
Published: Tue Jun 19 2018
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