Biking Techniques (Part 21)

Braking Point

No-one Can Tell You Where to Brake

You are the only person who knows where you need to brake. Other people can suggest decent starting points to brake, but even someone else riding your own bike can't tell you where your braking point will be.
Your ideal braking point depends on many factors. It depends not only on the bike, but the tires, the track conditions, your own braking technique, and even such transient conditions as the temperature and humidity.

In fact, your perfect braking point will probably not even be the same from one lap to the next -- as the session goes on, you'll need to be constantly re-evaluating your braking point for each corner.

So showing you "braking points" is totally useless. So is asking someone else where they brake. Only you can determine where to brake.

So How Do You Know Where to Brake?

Your initial braking point is a guess. Based on what you know of your bike, and your technique, you can make a pretty good guess. Always guess further back than you think you need to brake -- it's much safer to start further away and move your braking closer to the turn than it is to run off the track the first time you go into the corner at speed.
Once you have that initial guess, you use two basic principles to find your rough braking point.

Basic Principles

If you come off the brakes before you turn, you braked too soon.
If you are going too fast to turn in where you want, or you turn and run wide of the apex, you braked too late.

Refining Your Braking Point

The more you practice the more the basic principles become second nature. You'll then have attention left over for more subtle cues. You will start to pick up on how the bike feels under braking, you'll integrate that with your site picture, and you'll know very quickly whether you've braked too early or late. That'll let you adjust by either applying the brakes less hard, or preparing to adjust your line for a deeper turn-in.


From TrackDoD Novice Group Orientation