TRAIL BRAKING: Expert Tips for Mastering Throttle and Brake Control

Guest:  Peter Shimm

Episode Summary:

Join us for an engaging and informative discussion with Peter Shimm, an experienced rider, as we explore the intricate world of trail braking techniques for street riders. In this episode, we emphasize the importance of blending throttle and brake controls to smooth transitions and stabilize suspension, showcasing the critical role trail braking plays with enhancing safety and handling in unpredictable street riding scenarios.

Trail braking isn't just for the racetrack—it's a vital safety tool that every rider should have in their toolkit. Whether you’re navigating winding roads of the mountains or the open stretches of the plains, introducing trail braking early on can be a game-changer. Peter and I dive into real-life examples and discuss how this technique can transform your approach to turns, ensuring you're always in control and never caught off guard.

Full Transcript:

0:00:15 - Bret Tkacs

Welcome to Around the Wheel with Bret Tkacs. This time we're talking with Peter Shimm, a 13-year veteran of riding and a relatively new adventure rider at two and a half years in the adventure world. He rides a 1200 GS from 2017. And we have a fantastic topic coming up today. And, Peter, why don't I let you introduce how we got to this topic?

0:00:40 - Peter Shimm

Well, Bret, thanks for doing this. I am a huge fan boy of your videos and I am particularly very, very happy that you branched out with your new venture on YouTube. One of your recent topics was trail braking. I think it was a taped segment that you made in New Zealand or somewhere down under. It was really really good and got a very, very positive response in the comment section.

One of the things you touched on in that talk really resonated with me. You talked a little bit about blending the throttle and the brake. Blending the brake, but blending the controls, which is something that I learned from Lee Parks and his Total Control course, and it's a technique that I just completely buy into. It's just it's made a huge difference in my riding. But yet, besides Lee Parks, you never, ever hear anybody talk or advocate that technique, and when you brought it up in your trail braking talk it really got my interest.

It apparently also got the interest of a lot of people who watched that video because in the comments section it just set off a firestorm of controversy. It was really really interesting some of the discussion that took place below in the comments section. I really would love to go into that specific topic deeper with you because I've just found it to be such a fantastic way to smooth the transition from deceleration to acceleration and the way it just smooths out your suspension and it doesn't upset the suspension, so I'd really love for you to go into that in a deeper way.

0:02:35 - Bret Tkacs

Let's definitely dive into that. I taught the Total Control stuff. Lee and I have known each other since before his book ever came out initially, and I also know Nick Ienatsch, and both those guys take a position on either side of me. Nick Ienatsch is far more into the separation of the braking and the throttle, which is a great way to trail brake. However, it requires a level of smoothness that often riders lack. And Lee Parks takes the other side of that. He likes very significant overlap of that braking and that blending, both that throttle and that braking. And again, also, that is a you know if you've done the course. I'm guessing you've done his level two if you've gotten into that. That it's also a fairly high skillset. But one of the things both of these guys have is a background in racing. They both spend a lot of time on the racetrack and although both of them advocate street riding and they use their trail braking methods to the street, they weren't developed from and for specifically street riders, and that's something I do differently. The way I teach trail braking is for street riders and it was made because I track and follow riders on the street. I've spent 11 years training riders on road and slowly came into this process where I've sort of shed off Lee's method of trail braking. I've shed off what Nick does and before that, if you look down through a super bike school, they're not into trail braking at all and kind of put those away because I've spent time watching riders on the road and the other thing that I've done is I've spent time because I've had so many years of watching this, of going. Now let's compare that skill set to the actual stats where people are dying out on the road. That's where trail braking came in, because here's the sweet spot about trail braking.

I mentioned this in the video and I'm gonna bring it up again to you. The key to trail braking is not about going faster through corners, which people always seem to misunderstand. You mentioned that firestorm where people just get really caught up. Nobody should ever do that. If you're going in and you got a trail brake, you're going too fast. You trail brake, you're going too fast. You should do all your braking before the corner. But the reality is we can't always see everything in the corner before we're in the corner. It's just not possible. Trees, you have cars, you have banked roads where you can't see sand and gravel.

Trail braking is really about extending your braking zone and that's, I think, what people are really lacking. This whole blending idea that you bring up, that you've learned with the Lee Parks stuff and I talk about in the video it has a lot to do with one is to carry that stability into the corner which you learned with Lee, where you carry that stability in that suspension, where you're not making sudden changes and you continue to make those changes as you go into the corner. And that's one of the certainly one of the key aspects of it. But it has so much more. I mean, it can change the way the bike turns into the corner, it can change where you are positioned in the corner so you're not increasing lean in the middle.

And, most importantly, it all boils down to one thing and and I think you know and anybody listening to us if they spend time knows that one of my number one answers is well, that depends. Well. What bike should he get? Well, that depends. Well. How fast should I go? Well, that depends. Well. Should I trail brake? Well, that depends, because there's always so many variables and trail braking is one of those techniques that is specifically for a that depends situation. You're not committing to anything except the exit. After you see the exit, trail braking allows you to delay that commitment to the exit until you're there, and that's why I got into this and talk about it so much in that video, and especially training with people like Lee and Nick and California Superbike School and all these other places that I've spent so much time.

0:06:26 - Peter Shimm

One thing, specifically that I'd like to get your input on is ground clearance. For me, the idea that when you trail brake, into a corner and then you're comfortable with your speed and direction, maybe you see the exit of the turn, maybe you don't, but you're comfortable with your speed and direction. Maybe you see the exit of the turn, maybe you don't, but you're very comfortable, and it's time for you to get on the throttle. And the Ienatsch school (Yamaha Champions Riding School) basically says you have to let go of the brake before you apply the throttle. I suppose, if you're a much better rider than me, or most, you can do that in such a smooth way that it doesn't upset the suspension. But if you think about it, even the very, very best rider, when they're off the brake, there is a millisecond or some fraction of a second between being off the brake and on the throttle.

The throttle, though, to me is the key in a turn, because when you're applying power to the rear wheel, the suspension rises, and to me is really the key to successfully negotiating the apex of a turn. Because you are raising the suspension, you're decreasing the chance of scraping, you're decreasing the chance of leveraging the bike and low siding. To me, that's the beauty of leveraging the bike and low siding. To me, that's the beauty of blending the brake and throttle, because there isn't that transition zone between brake and throttle and it's just a beautiful way to sort of maintain the speed, maintain the height of the suspension and smoothly get through that turn in the safest possible way.

0:08:04 - Bret Tkacs

Most riders, especially if we're talking about road riding. For me, that's what we're talking about. We're adventure riders, we're street riders.

0:08:12 - Peter Shimm

We're motorcyclists.

0:08:13 - Bret Tkacs

Right, that's where we live. We're not on the racetrack. Some of the riders that are listening to this may be on Harleys or Cruisers or very limited ground clearance motorcycles. Most of us are probably going to be on Africa twins or 1200 GSs or something where we have a very significant amount of ground clearance. Yes, absolutely correct, when you add the throttle.

One of the greatest myths out there is when you add the throttle, the front end comes up, but when you add the throttle, the back end squats. And that's not true and it's called anti-squat geometry, so anybody can look that up and go. What's anti-squat geometry? So anybody can look that up and go. What's anti-squat geometry? Essentially, the bikes are engineered so that they don't squat when you add throttle. Otherwise it would be disadvantageous to us to add throttle on a curve, but ground clearance is really for that limit. And on a cruiser, of course you can do that on the street, because you have so little to start with. And, frankly, if you or I are that close to limit on a 1200 GS, we're probably doing things that are already poor choices, you know,