With trail braking how can you feel when the tire is on its limit? Other than it tucking in and eating pavement.
Trail braking is definitely NOT one of those skill sets that you learn in a day or two at the track. It's like a lot of things that you try to learn to do......you start slowly and continue to increase in little baby steps. My suggestion would be to "master" the throttle and brakes for smoothness, before you even attempt to try and learn trail braking. Trail braking is NOT one of those things that you can be ham-fisted on the brakes with. Learn smooth, then get with one of the coaches and talk about wanting to try and learn it.
I think that pic there pass the limit. I usually tuck front. that's when I know. So I stopped using michelin tires. Super corsa hold much better . I heard michelin came out with new tires called power cup. I hope it is good tire. super corsa too much $$$. Looks like he is running dunlop on that pic right?
I don't plan to start doing it heavily. I already do it to a very very small extent, like T5 at Barber. I just like to know what my bike is trying to tell me. Even if I start to do it two years from now I'd rather know what certain vibrations may mean.
With trail braking, you have more weight on the front wheel and more load on the suspension. When the suspension is tuned properly and you gain experience, the front end "talks" to you before you lose traction completely. This is why Rossi and Hayden struggled so much with the Ducati last year. Lack of front end feel. The tire brands don't dictate how much or how deep into the corner you stay with the brakes. You trail brake till you are on the proper line. Being lighter staying on the brakes and trail braking is key to providing maximum traction and feedback.
So you're really trying to lessen the situation change of the tire from braking, accelerating and turning all at the same time? Instead you're really combining braking and turning into one motion therefore keeping the suspension more stable?
that's part of it, the other part of trail braking is it puts more weight on the front tire, giving you more grip and making it less likely you will crash. This is why it's so important to be smooth going onto and off the brakes. Imagine this, you are trail braking deep into the corner, the front suspension is loaded because you are still slowing significantly, the forks are compressed about half way, now imagine you just release the brake lever completely in one quick motion, what's going to happen? The answer is the the force that was pushing the front end down is now gone, the front tire has much less weight on it, meaning you have much less grip, additionally those forks are going to spring back to their normal position and as the front of the bike pops up from you releasing the brakes your traction goes away from the front tire and you tuck the front and crash.