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Braking in corners, good, bad, or ugly

4K views 61 replies 22 participants last post by  RedBlur 
#1 ·
I know people say dont brake in the corners! I notice I tend to use my brake to regulate speed, by tapping it in the corners, bad thing? :O
 
#6 ·
You can brake in turns. Anyone that tells you that you can't is just reciting gospel. There are caviates though...

Your tires have only so much traction available. If you are mid-corner, unless you are railing on a track or encountering a changing road service, you can add some brake. Do it smoothly enough and the bike will tell you when you are approaching limits. Useful for if you completely misjudge a turn (i.e. decreasing radius) or when there are hazards in the road. Just don't jam on the brake.

You can trail brake into a turn if you want. Not hard to do, though smooth is key here and you can seriously upset the bike if you are rough and go deep with it.

With that said, stop rushing corners and "requiring" brakes midcorner unless it is a hazard you are trying to avoid.
 
#9 ·
This, but take your time. If you're still a relatively new rider, practice braking before you get to the turn. By the time you start dropping into a turn you should have a good hold of the engine speed you want to maintain (so it's not still engine braking) and a good preparation for exit acceleration.

Think about it the same way you generally should drive a car: Brake leading up to the turn and for the beginning of it, but use acceleration to control your speed and control throughout the turn. With a bike the acceleration aspect is extremely important (depending on the turn and your entry speed), but the same basic principles apply. Use your acceleration to plant the rear tire and be very careful with braking mid-turn.

High-sides and Low-sides both suck...and both are caused by incorrect speeds or speed changes.
 
#7 ·
Instead of continuing the just don't do it talk lets take a quick simplistic look at why braking in a corner is asking for trouble.

Your tires have a finite amount of traction available that is used to resist lateral forces from turning, braking forces, and accelerative forces. While turning the majority of your traction is being used to resist the lateral forces to keep your tires from sliding out from under you. As you go faster and lean farther you have less and less reserve to be used for braking and acceleration. If you hit your brakes mid corner and you don't have the reserve traction to handle the new forces it will be taken from the traction allocation, which in turn causes a slide.

Now as others have said as you become more advanced you can utilize trail braking which is the conscious modulation of your traction reserve. As you need more and more traction for turning you release the brakes more and more until the apex when you are at full lean and need all possible traction to resist lateral forces. Like wise getting on the gas more and more as you pick up the bike using up the regained traction reserve for acceleration. This takes a great deal of skill to master and even professional racers who are riding the fine line of 100% traction utilization get it wrong from time to time.
 
#11 ·
On the racetrack, i trailbrake all the time... It's a necessity.

On the street...other than avoiding trouble, i have no idea why you would need to.

Please don't forget...never trailbrake in the rain!!
Not a question of need. There are plenty of reasons why you'd want to and they're pretty much the same reasons you'd do it on the track.

Personally, I feel a safer going a little bit faster so I have to trail brake even a tiny bit as opposed to just coasting into corners.
 
#12 ·
I have actually always wondered what the proper procedure is for an emergency situation in a turn. Like, if you are going into a long and fast sweeper and all of a sudden something happens when you have to hit the brakes hard. I imagine in that situation, rear brake is asking for a low side and front brake is asking for a high side. Would smooth action on both get you to a safe stop?
 
#18 ·
Depends on a lot of factors, Funny you should ask, As I found myself in just this situation not long ago.
I tried to scrub off as much speed as I could till the front was locking, then went onto the shoulder & was able to avoid a crash.
 
#28 ·
I'm sure you can learn more about hard cornering & braking on a safe track.

But because the street is not safe, You need to become proficient there as well.

The street offers all sorts of dangers, If you spend any time on the streets,
You need to learn to corner & brake on them too. It can be a whole different ball game.
 
#30 ·
if you brake during a turn, it will try to straighten the bike up which will increase your turning radius. if you trailbrake into a turn and then let off hte break midturn, your bike will tip in harder reducing your turning radius. both are shocking feelings if you're not expecting it, the dip from a released trail brake can make it feel like you're going to lowside, but trailbraking is definitely an advanced riding technique
 
#32 ·
ha! ok this one made me laugh! Guys there is a lot of discussion on here and what im gathering is there is a good bit of people who ARE breaking in corner pre-apex, which is what I tend to do, so is this a good idea/only an advanced thing, or are there a lot of us just doing bad practice. I notice I tend to do it on a sport bike more than a cruiser, So I think it is just I need to get my speed down better on entering, or more ballsy lol

The advice here is great! thanks guys!
 
#33 ·
Trail braking allows you to come into a turn with more speed. It also changes bike geometry so that the bike is easier to turn. Nothing bad about it. If you watch the aliens (aka MotoGP) you will see them dive into a turn on just the front wheel on occasion.

On the track it is good for faster lap times and out braking someone. On the street (imo) it is good for already being on the brake when entering a blind turn just in case. You won't upset the chassis by reapplying brakes, no matter how smooth you are.

If you are comfortable doing it, cool. If not, don't feel like you have to. If you want to learn, become a track day junkie...or just aim for leaving your brake lights on as you initiate turn in and build up from there.
 
#34 ·
I still stand by my statement that there is no real 'good' reason to trailbrake on the street other than avoiding trouble.

Trouble can be a blind turn, something in the road, any reason you need to brake from turn-in to apex.

As mentioned before trailbraking is a technique used to increase your entry speed into a corner. When we talk about using it on the track, we don't use it on every corner. You learn that there are "entry corners" where entry speed is most important and "exit corners" where drive is most important.

Touching the brakes to scrub off a little speed before turn-in is not trailbraking.

So other than "because you want to go faster in the twisties" what reason would you have to trailbrake under normal conditions on the street?
 
#37 ·
Nice shot.
 
#39 ·
best advice I can say about turning: do your braking before entering then dont even think about braking. Look through the turn and lean as needed. Go find a big parking lot and start doing giant circles until you can go around the circle faster and force more lean to build your confidence. Good luck man
 
#40 ·
best advice I can say about turning: do your braking before entering then dont even think about braking. Look through the turn and lean as needed. Go find a big parking lot and start doing giant circles until you can go around the circle faster and force more lean to build your confidence. Good luck man
Terrible advice. Adding lean + Throttle = lowside.
 
#41 ·
i didnt say throttle in the turn. Thats the exact advice they gave in MSF advanced course I just took. you go around this giant painted circle and they make you go faster and faster in very small increments until they see you lean more. Not like youre gunning it while leaning. If thats terrible advice then m sorry I am just saying what was taught in the MSF course. Take what you will.
 
#43 ·
honestly I cant tell you what they are thinking or are trying to say they told us this "ok now were going to go around this circle. every time you go around look at the rider coach and they will tell you when to speed up. Keep going and continue to lean" if thats the wrong advice then by all means correct me because I ont want to go down either.
 
#44 ·
To a point it's probably fine. But if a faster rider was going through a long corner, and tried to roll on to much while adding in lean it could cause a crash.

In most cases, you want to be standing the bike while rolling on, not adding lean.

But like I said, as an exercise for newer riders, it's probably not a big deal. Well, it must not be if they're teaching it in an MSF course.
 
#51 ·
Except that you should if you don't know the trail at all. Don't act like a fool to look hard in front of internet users.

If you don't know the path you're taking, go slow so it doesn't kill you.
 
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