Your Closest Call

[lipsticktomboy]

ooo look what i started maybe it has to do with the bike i never road a harley kinda bike but with the crotch rockets if u pull the front brake it will stand the bike up especailly if your just starting off, i have been riding for years i have raced and i love dragging a knee and for most speed using the back break in a turn is the way to do for best results and safest and i could go into counter stearing and everything else but i think that would be too much for him at this point i was trying to help. http://s1184.photobucket.com/albums/z33 ... icktomboy/ i think this is the racing album just learning how to do this pic thing on here

[Wrider]

glad you didnt go down another thing you should know is when going into turns you should use your rear break only

Ummmmm......... no.

Unless you're talking about ultra-low speed parking lot turns. But taking a curve at any reasonable speed, use normal braking technique: both brakes together, or front only, depending on speed, type of bike, etc.

Actually holding the throttle steady and rear braking moderately to scrub off speed is the proper technique. Most guys crash from chopping the throttle and using the front brake when they realize the sweeping turn is tighter than they thought or they enter the turn too fast. By chopping the throttle and using the front brake, most novices stand up the bike, overpower the traction and crash. The rear brake is excellent for modulating speed, much better than the throttle or the front brake. I use this technique all the time in fast sweepers. Steady on the throttle and modulate and scrub off speed using the rear brake only.

Sorry, but no. The rear brake is not excellent for modulating speed for a beginner. They need to learn to use the front brake - that's where the braking power and fine control is. Who is teaching "rear brake only" as fundamental techniqe for corner entry?

I'm pretty sure what lipsticktomboy meant is the very common, accepted, and practical method of "Trail Braking."
Maybe not for corner entry, but for use while in a corner it works great. (Say in a decreasing radius turn you overcooked a bit.)
The front brake tries to stand you up and starts to push the front tire, which gets it all squirrelly and not so much fun. (Pucker moment anyone?)

[zeligman]

I'm pretty sure what lipsticktomboy meant is the very common, accepted, and practical method of "Trail Braking."
Maybe not for corner entry, but for use while in a corner it works great. (Say in a decreasing radius turn you overcooked a bit.)
The front brake tries to stand you up and starts to push the front tire, which gets it all squirrelly and not so much fun. (Pucker moment anyone?)

trail braking (and wrider) + 1, but not a technique for rank beginners ... imho ... from personal experience. It took me a year to begin to use it appropriately after learning to consistently judge corner entry (as well as exit) SAFELY using both brakes as taught in msf.

[gsJack]

Trail braking refers to braking into a corner rather than completing the braking before corner entry. Can be front brake, rear brake, engine brake, or any combination of these. It doesn't refer to rear braking specifically. I spent a lot of time one summer a few years ago on familiar roads with known corners practicing trail braking late and deep into corners using all three to see how long I could wait to start braking and how much speed I could kill after into a corner. It was fun and good experience, never know when a deer is waiting around the bend or a car is coming head on half into your lane in a blind corner requiring instant speed and line adjustment.

[HYPERR]

ooo look what i started maybe it has to do with the bike i never road a harley kinda bike but with the crotch rockets if u pull the front brake it will stand the bike up especailly if your just starting off

Yes exactly, standing up the bike by using the front brake in the middle of a turn is one of the more common mistakes a new rider makes. They go into a turn too fast and brake with the front and stand the bike up and go straight into a ditch. Also loading up the front brake in the middle of a turn is deadly in that the front brake will now use up a siginificant portion of the available traction of the front tire.

i have been riding for years i have raced and i love dragging a knee and for most speed using the back break in a turn is the way to do for best results and safest and i could go into counter stearing and everything else but i think that would be too much for him at this point i was trying to help.

Keith Code would definitely agree with you as he is an advocate of pushing the bike further into the turn by countersteering. I also agree with you that this is also a lot to ask from a beginner as leaning a bike further when they already feel as they are going too fast is probably the last thing they want to do.

Maybe not for corner entry, but for use while in a corner it works great. (Say in a decreasing radius turn you overcooked a bit.)
The front brake tries to stand you up and starts to push the front tire, which gets it all squirrelly and not so much fun. (Pucker moment anyone?)

Yes exactly. For a new rider who has gone into a turn too fast, holding the throttle steady and scrubbing off speed by modulating the rear brakes is by far the best method. I'm with Keith Code in that I pretty much countersteer and lean the bike further but there are times I will need to scrub off some speed in a turn (for example the rider in front of me slows down more than I anticipated) and I will always do that with the rear brakes, smooth as silk and no drama whatsoever.

trail braking (and wrider) + 1, but not a technique for rank beginners ... imho ... from personal experience.

Trail braking is a totally differnent technique from what I mentioned and I agree it is defnitely a more advanced technique. You go into a turn while braking and decrease the braking power gradually as you go through the turn. It can be the front, rear, or both. When mastered, it will be smooth and seamless. I most frequently do it with the rear, especially with my CBR.

It took me a year to begin to use it appropriately after learning to consistently judge corner entry (as well as exit) SAFELY using both brakes as taught in msf.

The MSF teaches you to do all your braking before going into the turn and not during the turn. The problem is, they do not teach you what to do if you do go into a turn too fast. We are discussing the techniques available to remedy this situation, such as countersteering and using the rear brake. Trail braking is a totally different animal as it is a pre-meditated technique that a rider employs going into the turn, not a correction technique in the middle of a turn.

[capena91]

Yeah MSF tells you to never slow down within a curve but to stay at a steady speed or speed up. As of now I'm just getting use to the weight of my FZ6R before I can really start leaning into the curves with counter steering. I can counter steer but not that extreme yet, its a bit of beginners nerves and a new bike lol

[Marvin]

I was at this hillbilly wedding reception and I was sitting at the end of a table nearest to the dance floor, there was this younger girl 18-20 wacked out totally drunk outta her mind and she was dancing and falling down and making a total fool outta herself, but right in front of me there was these 2 little girls 10-12 years old pointing and laughing at the drunk older girl dancing and I was smiling and admiring how much fun the 2 little girls were having, their laughing was making me laugh,, then all of the sudden someone came up behind me, picked me up and slammed me down on the table, breaking the table in half, I was laying on the floor in a daze there was this big woman ready to hit me again screaming at me she was mad that my 2 daughters were laughing and making fun of her daughter dancing on the dance floor, but those wasn't my daughters I have no daughters! She was ready to hit me with a chair so I kicked her in the knee knockin her down and when she fell down i tought she was going to go thru the floor cause she fell hard, then all the men in the group came over and threatened me cause i hit a woman, I said that isn't a woman, thats an animal!, I got thrown out, I was told to leave, she stayed! I rode my motorcycle to the wedding so my close call story pertains to a close call with a motorcycle.

[capena91]

Haha that's hilarious Marvin, hope the drive home was better then the wedding lol

[JVRR]

Beginners should never be doing anything with rear brake only. It is an easy habit to form, and a bad one. I know from experience. Once you have formed your good habits, then you can/should start messing around with maximizing your performance and skills. But not until then!

My closest call was when I went down outside my house. I did not get hurt, but the bike did. Kind of anti climactic, I slid a good twenty feet or so but other than some ripped up jeans and boots, no damage to myself (sore for a week).

Closest call I guess would be when a deer ran out, and my first instinct was to look for others, which I saw none so I focused on that deer to see what he was going to do. That's when his family decided to run out and I got easily within a foot of hitting one. That was one of two times I realized why, despite being so convenient, I need to stop using the back brake- because it forms a bad habit. Left some good rubber on the road with that one.

[storysunfolding]

You guys are making a lot of absolute statements. The MSF basic rider course tells you to get all your braking done before the turn. It's great for beginners with their gross muscle movements and beginners should really be erring on the side of being too slow. The MSF Advanced Rider Course teaches using your brakes to slow down in a turn (both btw), the MSF Kevin Schwantz RiderCourse teaches full on trail braking. So the MSF kind of covers all levels of riding (albeit not very well on the advanced side).

Beginners should definitely use rear brake only at slow speeds. While the front brake is a better tool for slow speed maneuvers it takes more coordination and finer inputs. Beginners often over apply the front brake at slow speeds and rediscover gravity.

However, using the rear brake only to scrub speed is probably not the best technique. The drag will lower the bike's suspension and slightly reduce ground clearance. Furthermore, given that most new rider's muscle memory for foot brake use parallels that of a car, it's very easy to lock the wheel if slightly panicked. That will take them right off the road.

I find the best overall technique is pressing more and going deeper into the turn. You maintain ground clearance, maximize available traction and do not run the risk of locking either wheel. You have to be pretty damned past the envelope for this technique not to work compared to others. It's hard to overcome that fear, but that's part of the reason why your training should be continuous and you should continually search, evaluate and execute to give yourself the time and space margins you need. Worse comes to worse there are very few turns in the US that you can't straighten and stop in even if you're going in hot.

My closest call happened when a car in the oncoming lane drifted off the road, over corrected and came sliding across the double yellow towards me. Given that the road was hemmed in with guard rails with at most 3 feet of shoulder, my only option was to gun it and beat him past the point of intersection. After calming down it took me a 30 minute detour to find a new pair of pants.