Originally Posted by
mattm
Never heard of trail braking - if I understand it it means braking coming into the turn, and while turning?
Basically, yes. It refers specifically to gradually letting releasing the brakes through turn-in and during the turn, up to as late as the apex of the turn. It's not the most descriptive of terms.
Originally Posted by
mattm
Seems like not braking is the best way to maximize speed through a turn to me...
You have much to learn.
More seriously, it depends on the turn (duh).
Originally Posted by
CharlyAlfaRomeo
The amount of braking is not an option but the distance it's achieved is. All other things being equal if it takes me 50' to brake from 30 mph to 15 and it takes you 75' I should be able to beat you through the turn provided I start braking after you do.
On the topic of trail braking I don't know people here that well and didn't want to complicate things. For someone who thinks they're having trouble with specific types of corners I didn't want to add any more variables to the equation.
I must say that I don't trail brake much on my bicycle but it's the only way to fly when I'm flogging my SV650!
Short of backing off before the turn as waterrockets suggested, I don't think beating people through the turn is critical most of the time (obviously there are times when it could matter) and, more to the point, not really the issue at hand.
I don't know, I guess if it's going to get complicated to the point of discussing cornering technique, it might as well be the best possible advice. "Do all braking before turning in," is a pernicious piece of misinformation that has too firm a foothold in the cycling world as it is. I can only assume that the intent is to prevent riders from braking hard in the middle of a turn. Which, first of all, I don't think most people are that inclined to do, anyway. And second of all, saying "don't brake while turning" seems much more likely to leave a novice in the middle of a turn finding that they went in too hot and they've either got to hold on for dear life and pray, panic and grab a handful of brake anyway, or go off the road. The solution that people with this experience come to is to brake waaaaaaay too early so that they don't pick up too much speed while turning and not braking. And the result is that this cornering advice, intended to help people get through turns faster, doesn't help them get through turns faster.
So if we're really going to go down the road of cornering technique advice, we might as well not be tentative about it. Though, as I was saying, I don't really think that's the issue here.