Braking during cornering

I've never understood why you need hill-hold on a motorcycle. A manual car, yes, because your'e trying to operate three pedals with two feet. I have it on my car because it has an electric handbrake which is either on or off with nothing inbetween - though I can still manage with just the clutch because it has plenty of torque at tickover. But on a bike with the brake operated by the right foot and the clutch and throttle controlled by the hands it's the easiest thing in the world. Strikes me as just another complication and another piece ot electronic gadgetry to potentially go wrong.

Gimlet said:

I've never understood why you need hill-hold on a motorcycle. A manual car, yes, because your'e trying to operate three pedals with two feet. I have it on my car because it has an electric handbrake which is either on or off with nothing inbetween - though I can still manage with just the clutch because it has plenty of torque at tickover. But on a bike with the brake operated by the right foot and the clutch and throttle controlled by the hands it's the easiest thing in the world. Strikes me as just another complication and another piece ot electronic gadgetry to potentially go wrong.

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and more income for the service department, clever buggers aye!

I posted this in another related post. This guy seems to have it figured out. When I took the learner's course I was told never to brake in corners. Now, I see that it's really about not causing the bike's suspension to suddenly tip forward or backwards...

Smoothness on & off both throttle & brakes is IMHO by far the best preservation technique..
...coupled with good consideration of the tightness of the turn and best observation of the road surface condition. Well, you need to have that, or you won't be able to ride smooth & progressive, so it goes without saying, I suppose.

Whenever you feel the tyres working hard in either acceleration or braking (particularly braking) you're only safe some of the time, but definitely not all of the time, so smoothness of action is very much key to minimising risk of slippage and also to some extent running too wide in a corner, although running wide is pretty much a separate issue.

The engine braking effect of the Rocket 3 is what makes the bike feel composed and reassured in the corners, assuming of course you have the correct gear selected for the turn before you tip the bike in to the corner.
The engine braking is doing the best modulated version of trail braking that most people could achieve manually using the rear brake.
Bikes with little or no engine braking can't utilise this resource, unless perhaps you're running in a lower gear with the addition of a slipper clutch, but that's not an area of experience that I possess so maybe others can add to this point...

There's (perhaps) a misconception of the suggestion that providing you're going in a straight line, you can use all the stopping power front brake offers the rider, but I don't think it's a wise assumption, because you have to assume that the contact patch at the front end is offering good and reliable friction. This just isn't the case if the road is damp or in any way dirty with anything from dust/organic matter, oil or perhaps a high tar content etc...
The front end can easily wash out while seemingly going straight with a full grab of the front brakes, when pressing on or deciding at a late stage that more speed needs to lost rapidly, due to lack of forward observation/consideration..

Aiming to ride corners with smoothness with the optimum balance of weight distribution (front to rear) is in my opinion a lot of fun to do.
Start slowly and use the engine rather than the brakes, then build it up with the brake action as the pace increases, but maintain smoothness. Makes any boring bit of road an entertaining bit of road. I do the same in the car, if i'm on a long/tedious road trip. Keeps the brain active.

Jagster said:

The engine braking is doing the best modulated version of trail braking that most people could achieve manually using the rear brake.

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I used to think that trail braking was the rear brake, but everything I'm reading actually refers to it using the front brake. In my mind "trail" refers to something trailing behind you, but actually it really means trailing on and off (the front brake) as you enter and exit the corner. The video I posted above does a great job explaining it and I've adopted that method to my riding some time ago.

My understanding is, it can be either brake & the term Trail Braking refers to an action of gently applying & releasing one or other of the brakes whilst cornering.

Kiwicol said:

My understanding is, it can be either brake & the term Trail Braking refers to an action of gently applying & releasing one or other of the brakes whilst cornering.

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Correct. It's not applying brakes through the corner. You apply them before that in the normal way as you approach the corner, but then fail to entirely release one or the other (or indeed both), retaining a whisker of braking through the turn until you see the exit and get back on the gas again.

On the road, if you're following a rider who routinely trail-brakes you may well see their brake lights flickering through a bend as they're just brushing the lever. Often that's enough to give you the chassis control you want.

Gimlet said:

Correct. It's not applying brakes through the corner. You apply them before that in the normal way as you approach the corner, but then fail to entirely release one or the other (or indeed both), retaining a whisker of braking through the turn until you see the exit and get back on the gas again.

On the road, if you're following a rider who routinely trail-brakes you may well see their brake lights flickering through a bend as they're just brushing the lever. Often that's enough to give you the chassis control you want.

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Actually, you can continue to apply more (gently/gradually) in the corner, if necessary. I realize this is a point of contention and most all of us learned not to touch the brakes at all.

Journeyman said:

I used to think that trail braking was the rear brake, but everything I'm reading actually refers to it using the front brake. In my mind "trail" refers to something trailing behind you, but actually it really means trailing on and off (the front brake) as you enter and exit the corner. The video I posted above does a great job explaining it and I've adopted that method to my riding some time ago.

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Kiwicol said:

My understanding is, it can be either brake & the term Trail Braking refers to an action of gently applying & releasing one or other of the brakes whilst cornering.

Click to expand...

Gimlet said:

Correct. It's not applying brakes through the corner. You apply them before that in the normal way as you approach the corner, but then fail to entirely release one or the other (or indeed both), retaining a whisker of braking through the turn until you see the exit and get back on the gas again.

On the road, if you're following a rider who routinely trail-brakes you may well see their brake lights flickering through a bend as they're just brushing the lever. Often that's enough to give you the chassis control you want.

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Yes....You are correct.
I have tended to have a sort of default view that on the road (talking general road craft rather than fast/overly progressive riding) that the front end braking has really been done by the time you tip into the corner, and that either the engine braking or a touch of rear brake (or perhaps a slight bit of throttle against the rear brake) is the thing that balances up the bike (combined with a touch of additional counter steering if needed mid corner). To me, therefore, trail braking is, like Journeyman stated, is primarily centered around the rear brake.
My logic says to me, that if I need to start using front brake to act for me in the middle of the corner, i'm clutching at straws somewhat.
While applying the front brake in the corner might have some theoretical benefit of increasing the contact patch, it also straightens up the bike which is something i've only ever needed to do when i've jumped off, say, a trail bike straight onto a razor sharp handling sports bike which can often catch you out, as the sports bike turns in much quicker that expected.
Personally, I don't like trusting everything on the front end of the bike, as a default, subconscious action, though I can see why a moto gp rider would need to do so on a dry track with racing slicks at race temperature.
I come from all my early years of riding grass tracks and loose dirt surfaces and the roads I ride in my area are relatively technical (tight & variable) in nature so I can't help but fall into my own default way of riding.
Maybe I do use more front brake than I think I do. I don't know. All I know is, I don't want to ride faster than I do already.
I'm not normally the one who holds anyone back. Usually it's quite the opposite, but I do have an innate fear of loosing the front end. I don't have much concern of the rear breaking away.
If you have ever ridden much on grass, you'll probably have a closer parity of logic.

I think if you're really pressing on, your braking intensity up to and into the corner will be much greater, so there is more variation in braking nuance than if you're riding for smoothness.

I'll never be a good pupil at a riding school

Front trail braking has become more of a thing in racing since the advent of sophisticated electronic rider aids. But there's a big difference between "applying" the front brake once you've already entered the turn - ie. going from off to on while the bike is mid-corner - and never completey releasing the front brake through the trun once the initial hard braking is completed. I would never grab a handful of front brake mid-corner from nothing. The danger is dive. But if you've steadily released brake pressure but never fully let go, that's different. But again, todays electronics deal with dive and in theory cornering ABS will save you in a panic brake situation. But it goes without saying, that situation should never arise.
If I do find myself misjudging a bend and going on too hot (and it happens) I just lift my head, focus on the exit - which will cause you to instinctively put in more countersteer because the bike will go where you look - and use the rear brake to do any slowing that is required. If you don't panic, look up and look out of the bend, and scrub excess speed off gently with the rear, you have far more time than you think.

The reason I rear trail so much on my KTM is that it has long travel non-active suspension. It's also non-adjustable except via preset modes. These are very good but you can't dial in extra compression damping prior to commencing an aggressive ride. You get what you're given. Even so, it's very well damped in Sport mode and it's such an agile chassis with so much leverage from the wide bars and a centralised mass, it rewards braking deep into a turn and turning very late at the last moment. This puts a lot of load on the front tyre which makes the bike feel thoroughly glued down and inspires enormous confidence at acute lean angles - which is why the bike is so good at hustling sports bikes. But it you hold a lot of front brake right up to the instant you tip the bike in without having been able to stiffen up the damping beforehand, when you release it the front suspension will rebound and unload the front tyre. This will cost you that confidence-inspiring glued down feeling but it will also cause the bike to understeer and unless you conciously add more counter-steer it is likely to run wide. This does not make for happy scratching. But, if you brush in just a whisker of rear brake as the front comes off that stops that rearward rebound and keeps the chassis settled and flat and doesn't slow the steering. You release it completely when you see the exit and dial in the gas again.

It should be said though, all this applies in bends which are taken while still on the power. On slower, very tight turns when the power is shut off, the tried and tested slow in, fast out maxim still rules.