Practical Application of Theory

[OTB]

Originally Posted by No Worries

Going up Lookout Mountain, it's pretty much all throttle control. Coming downhill is a different story. There is this one section where you can come down a straight section around 60. This leads into a 15 MPH hairpin turn. The road is steep, crowned, and no shoulder.

I start braking, front and rear before the turn. I forgot, the road jogs to the right before it hairpins to the left. I also start leaning off the bike while I'm in the jog. I keep the brakes on in the turn. This probably goes against what every racer has said or written. But like OTB says above, if you go off the front brakes, the front rises and loses traction. You can't give it gas in this situation to load the rear, but with the rear brake on, the rear is loaded.

About seven-eights through the turn I let off the brakes and start giving it gas. It looks and feels so smooth. Like I've been doing it a thousand times. Actually, I have done it a thousand times. But I've seen bicyclists crash there, and I've stopped to move motorcycle fairing parts off the road.

That is why there is no substitute for experience. The book might say not to use the front brake in turns, but practical experience says that at times, not only might you do so, some times it is required. I, too have been on some truly gnarley, downhill, off camber nastiness that, if I followed convention and "common knowledge", I would have been off in the tooly bushes somewhere. That doesn't mean I grabbed a handful of front brake.......it does mean that I squeezed that lever with care and trepidation....