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Trail Braking


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yes. thank you, cobie. at every event, i used 'tools' i was taught at css. you can be sure the championships wouldn't have happened without the lessons learned. now, if i could only master those skills.

 

having to step up to the expert level next year will give me the opportunity to elevate my game...you know, get to follow the fast guys. with the likes of t.batey leading my chosen class, i'm gonna need all the help i can get.

 

i've recently aggravated my injury and been put on a "don't do anything for the next six weeks" recovery plan. in this time, i'll have ample opportunity to address the agenda for next year...i hope i can fit you into the plan. :D

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  • 1 month later...

Qutoe:

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By the way, Ballistic is insanely fast, and typically does not trail brake. He instead finishes his braking in a straight line (presumable right to the limit of traction), then turns the bike extremely quickly (again, presumably at the limit of traction). This technique works very well for him as he just crushed the all time lap record at Streets of Willow Springs on (I think) a production 636 with DOT tires. I hope you get a chance to ride with him some time ? it is a real treat to watch ? so long as you can keep him in view (which is no small task).

 

Steve

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I watched him go around that track when I was at the school, and I was speechless.

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How about this for a reason the bike wants to stand up in a turn. When you lean the contact patch moves from the center of the tire to the inside. As this happens the braking force starts to generate a turning force, it wants to pull the tire to the inside. This is what the rider must deal with by increasing the pressure on the bars. It is somewhat masked in trail braking as you are leaning the bike you are releasing the brakes and the force while geometrically increasing is dynamically stagnant.

 

Does the bike turn better with the brake on? NO. The bike does turn better with the front compressed so turning just as the brakes are released is the best it will turn.

will

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  • 2 months later...

Nevertheless, it appears that ALL (at the least top guys) MotoGP riders trail brake (just watch on board videos and races). In fact, I have vid of rossi at valencia with lap showing his right hand. Although it is a track where trailbraking is must in some corners but not all, and Rossi trailbraked in all, very deep, BTW. In fact, even in the chicane :huh:

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Nevertheless, it appears that ALL (at the least top guys) MotoGP riders trail brake (just watch on board videos and races). In fact, I have vid of rossi at valencia with lap showing his right hand. Although it is a track where trailbraking is must in some corners but not all, and Rossi trailbraked in all, very deep, BTW. In fact, even in the chicane :huh:

I brought this up on another thread and it needs to be said here too. Trailing into corners will kill your mid turn speed and you will turn slower than without the brake on. So why would the fastest guys in the world use it? because with 250+ horsepower it's all about getting the bike stood up and the gas on as soon as possible. With a slower bike the benefit of trailing diminishes and becomes a liability to your lap time. With 110+ horse my 636 puts out I kill all the 750s with turn speed and 20 to 30 horse they have on me doesn't make up for the speed they scrub trailing in.

The bottom line is I can use almost all of the 636s power leaned over, almost. so in my opinion the threshold for trailing to be effective is when you cant use the throttle leaned over. Most of the new litter bikes are a pain to ride hard and keep the rear hooked up but they can be ridden effectively without trailing being the only solution, meaning that the threshold IMHO is above 160 horse but not much.

Will

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  • 1 month later...

Hmmm, interesting point Will makes about the horspower scenario. Speaking of which, is it safe to assume that your own 636 engine is putting out that 110+ horsepower in stock form?

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OK, I define trail braking as the intent to continue slowing down after I initiate steering. When I do this, I actually pick the spot where I will be off the brakes and back on the gas. I begin to release the brakes when I initiate steering but release with the intent to continue slowing down.

 

No trail braking I define as releasing the brakes when I initiate the turn. This is done with the idea that I am done with braking and I'm no longer concerned about the entry speed.

 

For me then the only distinction between trail braking and not is rate of release and intent.

 

I have found myself using trail braking a lot more at a recent track day at Barber Motorsports Park. The reason? I was on an FZ-1 and couldn't lean the bike over far enough due to dragging the pegs. Had I not trail braked, the speed at which I entered the corner would have put me on an arc way too wide for the turn. I trail braked into turns 2, 5, 6 and 11.

 

I would establish my throttle points by first not trail braking into the corner and noting where I got on the throttle at.

 

I found that trail braking allowed me to brake later and carry more speed to the points where I would get on the throttle. I also found that it required a lot of attention and I didn't downshift a few times because I had too much attention on just making the turn.

 

Now I contrast that to when I was racing an R6 at Nashville a month earlier. I started out trail braking a lot. My whole sense of speed was WAY off and I was going way slow as I hadn't been on a track in two years. It was taking a lot of energy and a lot of attention.

 

The less I trail braked, the faster I went and the easier it became to ride the bike. I found that the less I trail braked, the faster I went. My lap times dropped from 20 seconds behind the fast guys to 4 seconds.

 

There was one turn at Nasville that I did trail brake into all the time though, the turn 1-2 combination. It's basically a long decreasing radius left hander. There is a small straight between 1 and 2 which should allow them to be seperate turns but I could never get my sense of speed right for it and so used the brakes as a crutch.

 

Kind of an odd crutch... :)

 

Anyway, if you want to compare my big FZ-1 vs the Will's ZX-6, I have video of Barbers on my website at http://www.gormanonline.com/permitted/vide..._052204_BMP.wmv

 

or http://www.gormanonline.com if you want to see the whole site.

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There was one turn at Nasville that I did trail brake into all the time though, the turn 1-2 combination. It's basically a long decreasing radius left hander. There is a small straight between 1 and 2 which should allow them to be seperate turns but I could never get my sense of speed right for it and so used the brakes as a crutch.

 

Kind of an odd crutch... :)

 

Anyway, if you want to compare my big FZ-1 vs the Will's ZX-6, I have video of Barbers on my website at http://www.gormanonline.com/permitted/vide..._052204_BMP.wmv

 

or http://www.gormanonline.com if you want to see the whole site.

I have ridden Nashville and turn one two is a lot like turn eight nine at Willow, but about 40 mph slower. My point is the turn can ridden without the brakes. If you find the speed that the front will push that is as fast as a bike will slow once turned, and there is no risk of locking the front and loosing the gyro ( crashing). This is a hard skill to develop as it will kick in most peoples SRs. but once you have the sense of traction and speed to push the front most trail braking situations are better handled by quick turning at a speed that will push the front, all that is needed to stop the front from pushing is the slightest amount of throttle.

 

As for it being necessary to ride a particular bike a different way, none that I have ever ridden. I ride every bike I get on the same way. The speed will vary as the lean angle and traction varies. I have ridden every kind of bike on the track at one time from YSRs to Bagger Harley's and they all tracked the same through a corner.

Will

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Hmmm, interesting point Will makes about the horspower scenario. Speaking of which, is it safe to assume that your own 636 engine is putting out that 110+ horsepower in stock form?

That number was the before I even took the valve cover off to adjust the valves with and Acrapovic, PC3, K&N filter, and Ultmate 4 fuel. Now with a valve job, cam timming, and MR9 it was 118 in January. I am thinking of freshening it up now as I have 6 race weekends (5 sprints each and four 1/2 hour endurance races)and 5 track days on it already.

Will

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I have ridden Nashville and turn one two is a lot like turn eight nine at Willow, but about 40 mph slower. My point is the turn can ridden without the brakes. If you find the speed that the front will push that is as fast as a bike will slow once turned, and there is no risk of locking the front and loosing the gyro ( crashing). This is a hard skill to develop as it will kick in most peoples SRs.

I figured you'd been on Nashville. I guess the point I was trying to make but didn't come out and just say it was that I was using trail braking as a crutch because my SRs were kicking in. Of course, having the brakes on while turning the bike into a corner I thought I was going too fast for wasn't really helping that much. That's the "Kind of an odd crutch..." comment.

 

As for it being necessary to ride a particular bike a different way, none that I have ever ridden. I ride every bike I get on the same way. The speed will vary as the lean angle and traction varies. I have ridden every kind of bike on the track at one time from YSRs to Bagger Harley's and they all tracked the same through a corner.

 

If the speed, lean angle, and traction vary, you cannot be riding the bike its limits with the same plan for a turn as you have for another bike at its limits. If you're not riding with the same plan, then you're riding the bike different. I know you'd ride a YSR 50 around Barber differently than you would your ZX6.

 

Oh... how did this get to how a bike tracks through a corner? I won't bother arguing that with you. We'd agree.

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  • 4 weeks later...
[

If the speed, lean angle, and traction vary, you cannot be riding the bike its limits with the same plan for a turn as you have for another bike at its limits. If you're not riding with the same plan, then you're riding the bike different. I know you'd ride a YSR 50 around Barber differently than you would your ZX6.

What im saying is that all the bikes I have ridden (standard and sport) will do the same thing wit the same input. I wasn't trying to compair a 50 MPH bike to a 150 MPH bike on the same track. But the stadard you spoke of to the sportbike. In that compairison I am saying that the bikes can be ridden with same plan and technique. It isn't to change to trailing just because the bike is different, unless you start taking the power up to and over 200, then I will bend to your theary. Only so long as the outright fastest lap in the goal though as even those bikes can be ridden brake, turn, roll-on. Max has shown that the 250 style can work as well as second in GP.

Will

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So I went back to Barber on June 19th. (video with an overlaid trackmap on my website) I decided I would try not using trail braking.

 

Since I was trying to follow someone in the first session, I used the 2nd session to work on no brakes first then light brakes.

 

With no brakes, what I found was I was able to flick the bike over and get through the turn just fine - despite being a little scared going into turn 5. I was also able to get my entry speed to turn 1 up to 100mph.

 

Adding light brakes I was able to run 1:46s easily without having to worry about corner entry traction so much.

 

In later sessions, trying to follow an 04 R1 (those things are rocket ships on the straights,) I found that I was slowing WAY too much for turn 1. I was slowing down to the 80-90mph range. I had to very carefully monitor my speed to keep from slowing down too much there. I'm sure it applied elsewhere too but T1 was the only where I had enough time to consistently check.

 

So, for me, trail braking doesn't help.

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