Originally Posted by
grolby
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.
You have much to learn.
More seriously, it depends on the turn (duh).
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.
The "do all the braking before the turn" is not advice given to go through the corner faster, but to do it safely. As lean angle increases traction available decreases (contact patch, direction of forces being applied). Using the brakes uses some of that traction. It takes experience and smoothness to trail brake. New riders don't have either. As the result that advice is given. Similar advice is given to motorcyclists as they start their riding, and if braking mid corner is necessary the advice is to stand up the bike, apply brakes, and then initiate another turn in. Of course a danger with that is target fixation. Instead of looking through the turn people start looking directly a head, and look that is where they go! A lot of crashes happen because rider gives up and picks a spot to crash. Instead of just relaxing, looking through the turn and going with it.
If the goal is to go through the corner the fastest way possible we also need to talk about lines and early apex, neutral, late apex.
Honestly there just too much crap on public roads to mess with trail braking. It's great for motorcycles on a track, but for bicycles it's not really needed. As I said just to much crap on the road, and bicycle tires are not as forgiving at motorcycle tires that are up to temps.