Trail Braking...Should I be Doing it?

[thouchin]

noobinacan;286672 wrote:
Its a ON/OFF thing and any recovery is either by sheer luck or you have enough muscle memory to unload the front by reducing brake input or giving some gas...depending on situation.

I disagree. You only need to look at a camber thrust plot to see that the cornering force does not fall off to zero after you reach the max it simply stays the same or decreases before evetually ramping to zero. Once past this max, the tire doesnt respond to input like it did before you were past the maximum. How quickly the force decreases is what people call "feel". A tire has more feel at the limit if the force stays constant or only drops of a little bit past the max.

I agree that once you are turning too much, the forces are now decreaseing rapidly and the front begins to slide... your really close dumping it... but before that point, you have some feel where you try to turn a little more and the bike just doesnt turn.

Now I was not considering trail braking with any of this. I have not personally felt the limit of the front tire while trail braking... but I'll get there someday.

T.J.

 

[gcally]

Another very important factor with trail braking is suspension setup. If you do not have the correct setup for you weight/riding ability it is very hard to do aggressive trail braking. A good example is turn 1 at Pitt Race. When trail braking in that corner you are already on a downhill grade add in a good amount of trail braking and you have a recipe for losing the front. A good aftermarket suspension setup will handle bumps and rider input 1000 times better than stock suspension that already blew through the damping stroke. Trail braking when your front suspension is maxed out and you hit some bumps your front will have more tendency to slide. I have seen people crash in that turn when they were barely leaned over.

When I started racing 15 years ago the first thing we threw money at was suspension. Why do you think the Daytona 675r is one of the best track bikes out of the crate. It has true race spec Ohlin’s components.

 

[noobinacan]

andykurz;286676 wrote: Aman, what did the #99 say about rears? Sorry to threadjack.

I was surprised that dunlop recommended 32f/23r in the 211GPA, the first seems hi and the rear seems lo. Anyway, that's what I run, I am not smart or fast enough to argue with them.
topic of rear never came up.
but form personal experience and talking to others in the paddock, if you run anything higher than 23 in the rear, it will hot tear.
22-23 is what I run in the rear too...


thouchin;286699 wrote: I disagree. You only need to look at a camber thrust plot to see that the cornering force does not fall off to zero after you reach the max it simply stays the same or decreases before evetually ramping to zero. Once past this max, the tire doesnt respond to input like it did before you were past the maximum. How quickly the force decreases is what people call "feel". A tire has more feel at the limit if the force stays constant or only drops of a little bit past the max.

I agree that once you are turning too much, the forces are now decreaseing rapidly and the front begins to slide... your really close dumping it... but before that point, you have some feel where you try to turn a little more and the bike just doesnt turn.

Now I was not considering trail braking with any of this. I have not personally felt the limit of the front tire while trail braking... but I'll get there someday.

T.J.

you just wait...
you just wait till it slides on ya :wow: opcorn:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Etb_kqxnI

 

[Ducti Jockey]

noobinacan;286672 wrote:
What are the symptoms of rear wheel slides aka loss of grip ?
the 'feeling' that its sliding and the muscle memory to not CHOP the throttle...but back off it just a bit.


edit: Adam/Matt Spinak/Bill and Ron all believe that TC will save your front slide!!! :spank:

The feeling when the Pirelli beings to let go is a wiggle or two from the rear then a slide begins. Been there already and controlled it

 

[flynlow69]

Otto Man;286643 wrote: Not sure which group you ride in. It's a hard read some times on this board...there's guys that turn 32s/33s at VIR North and think they're dragging ass...and there's guys running 2min+ lap times at the same course that think they're hauling the mail.

That being said...

For me, the biggest difference between I and A was confidence in the front tire. It felt like I had to triple my corner entry speed to run an A group pace. It's utterly amazing just how hard you can push that front end. I now see how important it is to have fast entry speed, especially riding a 600. Yes there are a ton of other factors that rolls into the I and A difference, but that's the part the stuck out the most for me.

yea, i'm running intermediate, this looks like where i leave alot on the table for sure.

 

[slowhare]

For those of you that have access to MotoGP videos... the current FP1 at ARAGON has a decently long segment (starts near 31:20) of onboard with MM. Along with it, they show the lean angle, throttle and brake application and you can really see how he gets on the brakes hard, and then eases off as he heads toward the apex.

 

[mcskeeto]

In regards to the initial question of this thread- Should I trail brake- the answer is YES. It makes the bike turn in way better and can save your bacon on the street as well.