[Misti]

Originally Posted by csmith12

Yep, Awesome!!!! You're connecting some dots and skills found in the materials. Trail braking is a useful tool when you need it and can hurt you when you don't. It allows a hotter than normal entry to a corner to help prevent a last second pass, a possible solution when you slightly overcook a corner, ect.. ect.. And yes, it does conflict with some of the benefits of the quick flick. Since trail braking normally results in an inside line, you're leaned over farther + longer AND with less throttle throughout the coner. Exactly as you predicted in your diagram.

That is the beauty of roads and tracks though, not all corners are the same, it makes 0 sense to quick flick many corners such as a long sweeper. Hence a controllable amount of trail braking would play a role in how the "preferred" line around a the corners of a track is presented by coaches.

Have a look at some of the tracks that have a "bus stop" corner. The crash statistics are high in those corners. Why? I would bet my left arm that trail braking errors are a big factor in a very large percentage of the crashes in those corners. (turning in too early and lazy steering being high percentages too) Many very sharp corners are better suited to a quick flick vs a deep trail but many riders push the limits of the bike and themselves in search of faster lap times. The secret sauce is in the timing, you have to be off the brakes and back on the throttle before the load on the front is too much for the front contact patch to bear or the rear is too unweighted for the patch to hold as cornering forces increase.

Also, the red line in your image depicts a classic rider error and very applicable to both questions just asked. Can you spot what it is?

Originally Posted by csmith12

Love it. This is a great thread with lots of useful information. I think that people get caught up in trying to have a rule to follow for every corner and every situation so they think it's either got to be ONE way or the OTHER. You either trailbrake in every corner all the time or you don't and like you outline above there are different solutions to different corners and different situations.