In 2023, I launched an ongoing series of podcast interviews with professional riding coaches (see The Ride Inside with Mark Barnes at bmwownersnews.com or your favorite podcast streaming service). Those discussions, and my immersion in the interviewees’ printed and online instructional materials (some of which I’ve reviewed elsewhere), re-emphasized the importance of smooth control inputs in maximizing riding safety, enjoyment, and performance. Trail braking is a standout example of this principle and deserves special attention. Not only is it of great importance as a technique (recent research indicates we kill ourselves much more often in curves than cars kill us in intersections), it also illustrates an undeniably relevant aspect of human nature: our resistance to change.

First, let’s go over exactly what trail braking is, since there’s still considerable confusion and controversy about this topic in the motorcycling community, despite it being decades old (not unlike countersteering, although the latter has finally gained widespread acceptance). Trail braking is the gradual release of brake pressure after tipping your bike into a corner. As you add lean angle, you subtract braking force, swapping one demand on your front tire’s traction for another. Some small—perhaps negligible—amount of braking is maintained through the first half of the curve and finally released completely as you reach the apex and start adding throttle and standing the motorcycle up, once your exit is visible and you’re pointed appropriately. Long, sweeping corners may include an intermediate period of maintaining a set speed with steady throttle and constant lean angle, merely covering the brakes in case you encounter something unexpected. All this primarily involves the front brake, but can include the rear, especially on longer wheelbase bikes with more rearward weight bias, like cruisers and tourers. Trail braking isn’t necessarily applicable in all corners, depending on your speed and the turn’s tightness, but it is increasingly being taught as a technique used routinely in all sorts of riding. Covering the brakes through every curve’s first half is usually still advised, even if braking pressure has fallen to zero.

It’s called “trail” braking to distinguish it from the old-school practice of getting completely off the brakes before tip-in, since the rider will be trailing (sustaining) brake pressure beyond this point and trailing off the brakes incrementally, as opposed to simply releasing them all at once. This may still be a rapid process, but there’s a deliberate easing instead of a light-switch change. Motorcycle Safety Foundation orthodoxy has separated braking and cornering inputs sequentially to avoid overlapping the respective traction requirements on the front tire and potentially exceeding its ability to maintain grip. The original “Slow, Look, Lean, Roll” mandate had riders off the brakes and on the throttle, if lightly, early in the corner. New riders, at an MSF course or elsewhere, may also be discouraged from covering the front brake to simplify throttle control and avoid accidental brake application mid-corner. In addition to precluding unwanted consequences, these are pedagogical strategies, isolating tasks to make them more readily understandable and practicable for beginners. Such rationales are easy to appreciate, but once a motorcyclist is familiar enough with a bike’s controls to have some surplus mental bandwidth, learning to integrate simultaneous (trail) braking and cornering inputs should be a high priority. This is because doing so has big advantages and mitigates another set of problems.

The benefits of trail braking include a smoother transition that minimizes chassis pitch and keeps the front suspension in an optimal level of compression, sharpening steering by steepening the fork’s angle (rake) relative to vertical. (This detail doesn’t apply to BMW’s Telelever-equipped bikes, which don’t exhibit braking-induced front-end dive.) Forward weight transfer also compresses the front tire, expanding its contact patch and increasing its total traction capacity. Cornering forces compress the suspension, too, helping to maintain proper chassis attitude as brake pressure is reduced. Sudden release of the brakes before countersteering (tip-in) results in dramatic fork rebound (extension), upsetting chassis stability, reducing front tire traction, and making steering less responsive at the worst possible moment. Now the bike will be prone to running wide, especially in downhill corners, and more lean angle will be required to offset this in the absence of braking. The rider will also experience an anxiety-provoking lack of control, since they already closed the throttle upon initiating deceleration, leaving no other means of slowing further if they didn’t get entry speed exactly right. True, motorcycles decelerate slightly as they roll off their rounded tires’ centerlines, effectively reducing the tires’ diameters (smaller wheels rotating at the same speed cover less ground in the same timeframe), but this effect isn’t under a rider’s direct control and can be quite subtle; it’s not reassuring.

Maintaining some brake pressure into the corner allows a rider to fine tune their speed as they see further ahead. This may be a nuanced change, involving only a few percentage points of pressure, but there will be no need to unwrap fingers from the throttle and extend them to the lever. This takes time—about half a second—and that lapse can translate into significant distance traveled between realizing the need for speed reduction and initiating deceleration. After such a delay, a rider will feel greater urgency and is therefore apt to apply subsequent inputs abruptly to compensate for lost time. It’s much more confidence inspiring to be able to immediately modulate velocity with minimal effort, and thereby alter trajectory to avoid running wide without the need for additional lean angle, which would add risk and might not even be possible due to limitations in the bike’s ground clearance or the rider’s tolerance. (Slowing automatically tightens your arc at the same lean angle.)

Having speed reduction literally at your fingertips decreases the likelihood you’ll reactively slam on the brakes if something spooks you. Many mid-corner crashes are the result of a rider applying brake pressure suddenly when cornering loads have already reduced the traction available for braking. The resulting spike in demand will much more easily overwhelm grip than a gradual increase (remember, “gradual” doesn’t necessarily mean slow, just progressive—squeeeeze, don’t grab!). Alternatively, many other mid-corner crashes are a function of poor directional control, with bike and rider running wide and leaving the tarmac or crossing the centerline into oncoming traffic. Feathering the brake in a corner reduces fear by increasing control and the odds of successfully negotiating a hazard or surprising decrease in corner radius, or simply continuing deceleration to compensate for excess entry speed. Keep in mind this may involve only tiny amounts of lever pressure, maybe just a “barely there” 5% by the time you reach the apex.

There’s more to trail braking than what I’ve outlined here, including the development of finely calibrated tactile sensitivity, but a deeper dive into the technique is beyond this essay’s scope. For elaboration, see ridelikeachampion.com, motojitsu.com, streetskills.net, and ridinginthezone.com. Let’s turn our attention to why trail braking, despite the crucial advantages listed, remains something most riders don’t know about or dismiss as irrelevant or even undesirable. Whether they learned it from the MSF’s intro course, other riders, old motorcycle magazines, or their own solo trial-and-error, it seems the vast majority of motorcyclists shy away from simultaneous braking and cornering inputs, believing they should “never brake in a corner.” I’ve seen this firsthand, riding in groups and watching most—or all—of my companions’ brake lights go dark prior to tip-in; it’s also a ubiquitous observation of riding coaches. Maybe non-trail-brakers combined braking and cornering at some point in the past and caused a low-side crash, concluding (erroneously) the problem was overlapping those control inputs, rather than grasping they hadn’t traded one for the other in a proportional manner. Obviously, there’s good reason to reject a blanket prohibition against ever braking mid-corner; unexpected obstacles can appear anywhere, including just around a bend—what are we supposed to do if not brake? Yes, swerving might be an option or an additional requirement, but doing so would be more successful with less speed, and there may be limited range to add lean angle via countersteering. Even the MSF’s Basic Rider Course teaches a method of safely coming to a stop in a curve in such situations. The real debate is whether combined braking and cornering should be reserved exclusively for emergency maneuvering, or whether it should be a more routine component of handling a motorcycle. Additionally, there’s the argument it’s an esoteric practice appropriate only for the most advanced motorcyclists racing around a track or carving through canyons.

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While those eschewing trail braking may ostensibly do so based on such dubious characterizations, I suspect emotional factors make at least as much contribution to their resistance. Whereas some folks find learning and increased mastery inherently exciting, many others are averse to these challenges. We like thinking we’ve already got things under control, and we want to believe our perspectives need no revision. It’s humbling, maybe even deeply disturbing, to realize we’re not there yet, conceptually or practically. We can point to the fact doing things the way we’ve always done them hasn’t killed us (yet), and thereby justify disinterest in further development. Perhaps change would also feel like abandoning a cherished ideal. As an example of the latter, my own early resistance to trail braking involved clinging to an image of racers braking violently at the end of a straight, then flicking their bikes into extreme lean angles at corner entry. There was a common belief that braking interfered with turning—it would supposedly “stand a bike up”—so the brakes had to be off to allow this kind of daringly instantaneous transition. Perhaps older tire, chassis, and suspension technology really did necessitate such acrobatics on the racetrack, and braking does require a reduction in lean angle to maintain the same arc, but the model I had in mind has been obsolete for a very long time—and was never as I imagined it. (I’ve since learned “outbraking” a rival into a racetrack corner—braking later and harder than they could manage—actually yields a slower lap time; its goal is to change position and then block the opponent, not maximize speed.) In any case, this style of riding was an aspiration I certainly never achieved. Still, aggressively staccato inputs held a macho appeal for me, and it seemed shamefully timid to have my brake light on full display during spirited cornering. Truth has less influence on our behavior than belief or desire. If I need to view myself as courageous and skillful, and I consider trail braking cowardly and counterproductive according to my adopted perspective, I’ll resist doing it. Likewise, if I experience the inevitable frustrations of learning something new vexing and humiliating, I’ll stick with what’s familiar.

Of course, my perspective on trail braking has changed. Now I feel a hint of pride having my brake light on deep into corners because I believe the technique is superior to my old way. This belief arose from hearing respected authorities promote such an approach for years, and gradually discovering for myself that I really am smoother, more confident—and genuinely faster—when I employ it. Countersteering achieved credence the same way. Riders heard about it from so many experts in so many ways that they eventually examined the process for themselves. Low and behold, they found they actually were initiating turns by pressing on the inside handgrip, despite how counterintuitive this had seemed. Countersteering’s acceptance as a concept allowed for more consciously deliberate application in practice, even though every motorcyclist had always done it, even if unwittingly. Trail braking isn’t something everyone is already doing, although plenty of riders brake in problematic ways mid-corner. Try trail braking for yourself and see what your own evidence shows; just be sure you’re doing it correctly before rendering a negative judgment. Formal instruction can be invaluable here.

Mark Barnes is a clinical psychologist and motojournalist. To read more of his writings, check out his book Why We Ride: A Psychologist Explains the Motorcyclist’s Mind and the Love Affair Between Rider, Bike and Road, currently available in paperback through Amazon and other retailers.