Riding Skills Questions

[J Farrell / Speed Tech Motorsp]

Here is a pic of me barely making it into the bend during the 600 Supersport Race @ Road America this year. If you look at my forks they are completely compress while still turned into the turn. I'm obviously running wide from braking too late into the turn. The debate in my mind is do I blow the turn or try to save it and maybe hit the grass going down?
Well I know the bike is harder to turn while on the brakes but if I let off & turn I will completely blow the exit & entry of the next turn coming up. So I'm trying to slow it down and still make the turn. Can't give up im in 11th place just behind 10th. Well this is where I blew my whole race on this one mistake. I made the turn but everyone caught me that was behind me.
Look at the pic of the forks compressed and the steering turning into the corner.
Then look at the next pic of the brakes being let off and forks uncompressing and the steering turning outward like normal allowing me to turn the bike in. I was inches from hitting the grass but I told myself the only way to make it is to let off the brakes.

[Jeff]

Jeff I have to beg the differ on your braking theory. Being on the brakes does make it harder to turn it. Try this once. Take a bike while slightly leaned over going about say 50mph or whatever speed you want to try this at and while holding a constant lean angle apply the front brakes and watch what happens. The bike will go wide because it is forced to stand up.

Sure, mid-corner, you bet it will.  However, being upright and dropping the front end, raising the rear end and shortening the wheelbase make for a VERY twitchy combination which is far more capable of turning than a fully extended bike which is on the gas.

I see what you are saying, I just don't know if you understood the intention of my original point.

[HAWK]

The real answer is somwhere in the middle here. It's a long known fact that applying the brakes in a turn will cause the bike standup, this is however the case when you are already in the corner steady state and change nothing else. this is NOT trail braking. Trail braking  is still being on the brakes when you turn in, at this point the bike is still straight up and down so the brakes can't possibly make the bike stand up, you have however compressed  the forks altering the front geometery making the setup much more agressive in terms of wantiing to turn. Now if you do your trail braking correctly and release the brakes  about halfway to the apex you will feel the bike fall (the inverse by the way of your bike stands up with brakes theory) into the apex, now power out and  go like a madman with his hair on fire find another corner and do it all over again.

[HAWK]

Dammit Jeff, I finally find a post I can make a constructive comment in and my drug induced semi coma let's you out brake me into the post button.

[Jeff]

LOL...  no sweat Paul...  it's all good discussion.  I think we can all learn from each other's experience.

[catman]

Thanks CHEDMAFIA- this is turnin out to be a favorite thread already WOW you gotta be willing to take these posts seriously especially when the guy sticks a pic of himself +1 EBOZ! thanks again i just found my old copy also and now that some things are becoming clearer, i want to read it again!  Yea Jason,i,m gonna save all that, at 51 its some of the best procedural stuff ive read! Thanks John in NJ

[L8brake731]

After reading everyone's input on brakes, trail braking and turning in, I have to add my .02.
At the speeds we are going  (trying to achieve) traction is at short supply. Fact #1- applying the brakes (slowing the speed of the bike) produces the natural tendency for the bike to straighten up.  To over come this you have to apply more exerted pressure (pull) on the bars and pegs to maintain your chosen line through the turn. This over-exertion creates more friction on the outside edges of our tires telling us one of two things; our compound is not suited for the track conditions or our suspension is too slow. Neither of which is true in this circumstance. Many have dicked "tuning" their suspension to cure a problem that is solely induced by the rider's (error) style.
I raced HW's and won championships in my amateur year of CCS. As an expert I switched to LW's because I knew I had the tendency to "wack the throttle" to make up for my own shortcomings on carrying good speed through my turns. Horse power is a wonderful thing! I have learned alot from doing LWs and had loads of fun learning. I do however miss the HP!
If you ever have the chance to do a track day or even a race or two on a friend's LW bike, I highly suggest it. It will bring out a valuable learning experience that you can carry throughout your racing career. One is how not to dump the throttle, grab a handful of brake and kill all that good speed. But how to carry VALUABLE corner speed, and mostly how to make butter smooth transitions from entry to exit.  
Take a look at it this way: with your bike at speed, generally it's stable and predictable. If your actions induce any unsettling of it's stability, the result is going to be more effort on your part physically and resulting more than likely in slower lap times.
Smooth makes F-A-S-T and it's easier on the equipment.
Body position (including your eyes), gear selection, brakes, bar and peg input, and throttle. Your mileage may differ....
BTW great pictures of #260 FARRELL at the limits of traction! Those pictures really speak the truth.

[tzracer]

Jeff I have to beg the differ on your braking theory. Being on the brakes does make it harder to turn it. Try this once. Take a bike while slightly leaned over going about say 50mph or whatever speed you want to try this at and while holding a constant lean angle apply the front brakes and watch what happens. The bike will go wide because it is forced to stand up. The motion of the front tire spinning is being slowed so that energy gets converted somewhere else. It goes up the forks into the steering head bearings. Which makes the weight behind the steering head from the engine/frame/rider/etc push the neck of the frame towards the outside of the turn. That also causes countersteering back in the other direction which literally makes the bike want to run right off the track until you let the brakes of so the bike can steer back in.

Couple things. You are comparing apples to oranges. Turning while braking and putting on the brakes while you are already turning are not the same thing.

Your description of why a bike turns wide is not correct. It is due to the fact that while leaned, your contact patch moves towards the edge of the tire (inner edge in the case of turning). This offsetting of the contact patch it what causes some bikes to stand up when braked while turning (not all bikes do it, even with the same front tire, also this affect really wasn't noticed until bikes got wider front tires). ISTR that Tony Foale covers this in his book (I don't have my copy handy) http://www.tonyfoale.com/Main.htm. If your front wheel were like a pizza cutter, it would not stand up under braking.

The energy of the spinning tire does not move up the forks (exactly by what process does this happen?), the energy of the front tire goes into heating up the front brake rotors.

[J Farrell / Speed Tech Motorsp]

Well I need to prove a point now.
Ok lets just say for instance. You bolt a front axle to a vise somehow right. Now with forks & brake calipers connected still. Lay the forks on the floor. Spin the wheel at say 60mph on the bench. Now try to stop that wheel from spinning by using the brake calipers that are mounted to the forks.
This is simple science people.
Apply the brakes at full force to stop the wheel.
Let me ask a 10 yr old what will happen.
Well lets see. The forks will go flying up and flip over to the other side.
So what I am saying is if you apply front brakes at ANY time you will have a torque being applied somewhere else. That torque goes makes the forks travel upward. Now if your going in a straight line the energy lifts the rear wheel off the ground.
So if you lean into a turn while the brakes are still applied it is very hard to countersteer into a turn because as the bike wants to turn in the forks are pulling up on the frame which makes it pull towards the outside of the turn.
Now when you let the brakes off that energy of pulling the forks up is gone so it lets the bike continue what it wants to do. And that is lean into the turn.

[J Farrell / Speed Tech Motorsp]

See the reason the brake rotors heat up is because the forks and the bike have weight on them of which counteracts the brake pressure of the pads pressing on the rotor. If the forks where allowed to spin around forever and not slow the bike they would never heat up.

We are racing motorcycles here. Not pizza cutters. Just saying that it is obvious that the contact patch will move. You couldn't race a motorcycle with pizza cutters otherwise we would have them on our bikes. I have ridden tons of motorcycles & bicycles for that matter. They all work the same.
I have a mountain bike in my shop that I use for expiriments. I ride that thing around the parking lot and the same principals apply. If I hit the brakes on a bicycle while leaning to the left the tire turns into the corner and the steering neck pulls the bike up toward the outside of the turn.

Take your bicycle outside right now and tell me that is not true.
And for fun sake while going 35mph on your bike brake and lean into a turn. I'll bet it runs wide everytime unless you hit some ice or slick spot today.

[L8brake731]

+1 !!

If you (#260) didn't let off the brakes in that picture, the next shot the photographer would have taken would be one that resembles a green lawn mower!

[G 97]

I don't understand it.  I can't put it in a sentance.  I can't explain it.  But I do know that when on the brakes my bike does not want to turn as easily as it does when off the brakes.