How to corner, find the flow and make it feel rad!

Want to get faster in corners? Maybe braking is the key.
In this episode, we break down the real role brakes play in cornering and how better braking can actually help you go faster. Paul and Kristian dive deep into the skills, habits, and mindset you need to unlock more control and confidence on the trail.

In this episode:

• Fitness check-in with Paul and Kristian
• Corners, direction changes, forces & traction
• Getting grip — how to make your tires track where you want
• Braking myths (and why they’re holding you back)
• The variables: shape, surface, and speed
• Braking on modern trails
• Awareness and braking — a two-way street
• Why skills coaching matters for braking
• Bad habits from the era of terrible bikes and brakes
• Where to start: the fundamentals of braking
• Brake levers, biomechanics & body position
• Feeling connected with your bike
• Why “being centered” makes braking better
• Modulation: what it really means
• Creating pressure for better braking performance
• Braking to stop vs braking to not speed up
• "2-1-0 / both-back-none" braking explained
• And… donuts — same treat, new tactic

If you want to corner faster, start by braking better.

Thanks to our Season 4 partners:

Tsuga - Durable and innovative gear, crafted in the heart of the Blue Ridge Mountains, for the rides we all dream of. Borne in Boone, perfected in Pisgah

tsuga.us

Local Lion Coffee and Doughnuts - Local Lion uses a 1930’s award winning recipe is a craft rooted in tradition creating the experience of authenticity and flavor  

local-lion.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:00

that happy medium of controlling traction, controlling your speed, but also maintaining speed. Because ultimately, if you can maintain speed through corners, A, you're going to be friends, and that's always good. And B, it's more efficient. That's the flow state. That's where that cool feeling of doing a corner and being like, oh, my God, that felt awesome. Anytime it felt awesome is because you know you maintain speed and you're not having to pedal to get up to speed or pump madly or whatever it is. It's that feeling of, oh my God, I railed that corner. So braking is one of the tools that we can do to hopefully get that rad feeling through the corners.

SPEAKER_03: 0:41

Three, two, one, zero, and liftoff.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

Welcome to Donuts and Bikes, the mountain bike coaching podcast. Your hosts are Paul Howard and me, Christian Jackson, and we're here to discuss the skills, techniques, and tactics we use to train and mentor the riders and coaches we've worked with over the last 20 years. In this episode, we are digging into how we can use braking and corners to get that rad feeling we all look for. Hey, Paul. good to be back on the mic consistently for season four really enjoyed this um the repetition of being being on the mic and talking through all of our topics and it's good to see you more too

SPEAKER_01: 1:33

yeah mate yeah it's it's been fun and i i kind of was laughing the other day because it's like probably busier than ever right now but somehow we're making the podcast happen and it's you know busy people do other people that do all the things. So, um, yeah, I'm super grateful that we can do this cause it's, it's so much fun. It's, it's awesome. And trying to figure out coaching and in this different medium of podcasts and, and talking about it, it's, it's a ton of fun. So yeah, man, great, great to be doing this. And, uh, I think, you know, it's a good reminder for me. It's like as busy as you get, you still want to take time out to do the things that you want to do and not that you have to do. Um, yeah, at the end of the day, it's, it's good, good for your mental health and keep, keep

SPEAKER_00: 2:25

the positivity going. Absolutely. Yeah. This is a go season for coaching, getting ready for the summer. So training certifications, we've got to spend some good time together a few weeks ago in the Brevard area, writing some sick trails and yeah, now we're back in season four and just want to give a shout out to our, um, Our new sponsors, Suga here in Boone, manufacturers of really cool, unique mountain bike gear, especially hip packs and all sorts of little accessories made here in town. I

SPEAKER_01: 3:01

really liked that when I was at yours a couple of weeks ago, that mat that you gave me just to sit. The mud mat. The mud mat, yeah, just to sit on your... That was such a cool idea or to get changed on in the car park. That was... or just to stash your clothes in that, that was a genuinely, I was like, man, this is, this is sweet. I want one of these.

SPEAKER_00: 3:22

Yeah. It's, it stays in my truck. It's great. Um, came from the idea of Jimmy Combs, the owner of Suga was a climber, um, first and worked at a local climbing gear manufacturing company. And they made what they called scratch pads for bouldering for, you know, wiping your feet off. And then he transitioned that into the mud mat where it's like this bifold, piece of equipment. It's really, really cool. We all made here in Boone's. Great. And then Local Lion is partnering with us. Boone's first donut shop, which is really rad. They've been around for almost 15 years now. Oh, cool. And is that that long? It's been a long time. Amazing donuts. They've got a recipe from the 1930s that was award-winning, kind of a mysterious find. Maybe we'll unpack that in a future episode. Yeah, really cool. Really cool donuts and great coffee. And then, you know, for our listeners, if you want to support us, you can check out our Patreon on our website. It's a way to help us continue to do what we do and to grow this podcast into something that... that we can all benefit from, you know, that's why, you know, Paul and I are really motivated for this, not just for the creative journey for ourselves, but to really try to grow the culture, the coaching community worldwide, globally.

SPEAKER_01: 4:52

Yeah, totally. And yeah, I think, you know, I think it's good to just quickly touch on that too, because people, you know, when you hear sponsors, people think, oh, you know, you're making money and stuff, but it's, it, it costs money. quite a lot of money to run the podcast so you know really the sponsorship money is helping us um just cover those costs but also like we we are looking to travel to interview riders and to really sort of step this up again and and so just being able to have a bit of budget to pay for flights or pay for riders to come see us or or whatever the situation is it's that that sort of sponsorship money is is is that's kind of our plan big long term is is just trying to trying to make it cost neutral, essentially, because we are taking a fair bit of time out of our work and our personal lives to do it, because like we've always said, it is a passion project. So, yeah, having a few sponsors come on board, it really just helps it make sense a little bit more in that way. And like always, it's just cool to work with cool brands and help them out if they're helping us out. And it's good times.

SPEAKER_00: 6:03

Cool. You know, I've noticed in our conversations recently, the theme of strength keeps coming back up.

SPEAKER_02: 6:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 6:14

Have you done your calisthenics tip this morning? I

SPEAKER_01: 6:16

did, yeah. And I was moaning at breakfast because I was like, push-ups are really hard.

SPEAKER_00: 6:24

They get easier. It's one of those things that get easier, right?

SPEAKER_01: 6:26

Yeah. Well, my goal this week is like not too worried about The actual training I'm doing, I'm trying to just form the habit first of setting the alarm, getting up early, working out before breakfast. So it's like step one is form the habit and then step two is improve the habit. So at the moment, I'm just trying to form the habit of getting up early and going downstairs and working out a bit.

SPEAKER_00: 6:55

You know, in some ways that in itself is the hardest part. you know just making the decision to do it and then just yeah putting your foot on the floor and make it happen

SPEAKER_01: 7:07

yeah and that's what i've like noticed i've how i failed in the past is i've tried to if i haven't done the workout really well then i'm like oh this isn't work it's not worth it but it's like yeah it's just being kind to yourself i guess and just taking it progressively. And you can't get good at the workout until you just start working out, I guess, is sort of my logic this time. It's like, I want this to be a permanent change in my routine. And so long-term, you know, if I spend two weeks doing kind of crappy workouts, I don't care. But if those two weeks just start building the habit, then... Yeah, that's my logic anyway. We'll see. I'll tell you in two weeks if I'm still working out or not. We'll give it a go.

SPEAKER_00: 7:55

Let me ask you this. What's your motivation for working out?

SPEAKER_01: 8:02

Well, it's nothing too crazy. I do want to get stronger. I think the strength holds me back on my bike and the fitness holds me back. more than most things and I know when I have been stronger and fitter like my confidence because the two biggest things that hold me back in my head and my body I don't think it's my skill per se like I think my skill is beyond my head and my body so yeah I just want to get stronger and fitter and we're not getting any younger too right so it's all part of it I want to keep doing this for another 20 years so I can't, yeah, I just can't have the same routine that I had when I was 25 or 30, like I'm 46 now. So I've got to start behaving like a 46 year old and not like a 26 year old and actually work out because I think that's the bad side to like, if you grow up with that natural fitness, which I generally have always had, but the last 10 years or so, it's just that natural fitness definitely hasn't been the same. And yeah, having never had to work for my fitness, I'm now sort of reluctantly realizing that I can't just be fit anymore. If I sit around, I put on weight and that's never happened in my life ever. So yeah, just got to accept it and start acting like I'm 46 and not pretending that I'll just be fine. Right. Right. Yeah. I think similar. It's probably a ton of people that are listening to, right? Like, Yeah, just got to accept it and do the work and stop scrolling Instagram looking for easy fixes. You just got to commit, do the work and get it done. So I'm trying to sort of listen to my own advice and do it.

SPEAKER_00: 9:55

I love that idea of building the habit first.

SPEAKER_02: 9:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 9:59

Like you're building walls, you know, before you're deciding on furniture.

SPEAKER_01: 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 10:04

So, and then hopefully we'll make it easier.

SPEAKER_01: 10:07

Yeah. And then I'm doing like, Monday, Tuesday, day off, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Cause I feel like you can do most things two days in a row. And then, so if I do Monday, Tuesday, day off, Wednesday, Thursday, weekend off. So really I just have to do it two days in a row and then I'm good. So I don't know. Like I said, we'll see.

SPEAKER_00: 10:31

Awesome. You know, I think talking about strength really makes me remember the, um, uh, the performance factors episode. And I think this is a very conceptual episode and kind of talking through all those, those pieces from this unique idea of like how to, how did the performance factors vary from a regular, regular Joe rider to a pro rider. And if you haven't listened to those, to that episode, um, folks go check that out. Uh, great conversation there. And, uh, We started off that conversation talking about performance and defining performance. And for this episode, which we're titling Why You Should Break End Corners, I had an idea of just revisiting this idea of performance and framing performance in addition to what we said as how closely we can align our goals with the outcome.

SPEAKER_02: 11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 11:36

So thinking about goal setting in whatever we're doing on the bike. In this case, it's going to be cornering. But then the performance that we're looking for then is how closely the goals, our goal for the corner and the outcome, what actually happens, how closely they're aligned.

SPEAKER_01: 11:52

Yeah, I love that idea. In simple terms, if your outcome is way... a distance away from the goal and then chances are performance wasn't met. Right. But as if you can get those as close together, then really the goal is your ideal outcome. And if, if, if the actual outcome matches that, then yeah, you could be like sweet performance achieved. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 12:20

Yeah, exactly. Right. Yeah. So we could, we can fall below the goal. We can meet the goal. We can exceed it, you know, in any, in any given situation, which is three kind of, options there and so in this episode i really want to kind of talk about the role of breaking in corners and and kind of dive into this and um paul suggested this episode and i i was um i've been riding a single speed a lot lately and this is one of the things that i've noticed is one of the main main differences that's that's kind of taken me a while to unpack is um traction in corners and how this this this varies from the hardtail to the to you know regular full suspension bike but it made me think that that might be a good place to start us off with this uh this idea of braking is really talking about traction what it is why we need it

SPEAKER_01: 13:19

yeah that's that's cool and um so yeah that's right so you're riding a single speed hardtail at the moment clipped in is that

SPEAKER_00: 13:26

right yeah not all the time but like not all the time But once a week, maybe twice a week.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

When you feel like life is too easy, you go ride that.

SPEAKER_00: 13:36

Yeah, exactly. When everything's just roses and sunshine.

SPEAKER_01: 13:39

Everything's good. I'm totally happy. Let's go ride a really difficult bike.

SPEAKER_00: 13:44

It's changed my understanding of strength, though, in a lot of ways. Oh, for sure. But yeah, it's not my main bike, but it's got me thinking about skills and performance factors in a different way. For

SPEAKER_01: 13:58

sure. Yeah, totally. And I've got my, I've got my chromatic hardtail. Uh, we were going to do this last summer, but we'll do it this summer as we're going to do a little bit of a hardtail series, but, um, getting back to traction anyway. Um, yeah, I think. Then when you look at a corner, right, we're, we're changing direction. So anytime you're changing direction, you're going to, you're going to need maximum grip because just that, that direction change is amazing. All sorts of forces are happening, you know, the bike and the momentum, the mass is going one way and you're trying to get it to go another way against the current forces. So grip is key. If you don't have grip, we can't change direction, essentially. You just end up, you know, I always think like, you know, if you go as fast as you can onto an ice rink, and then try and turn. Nothing's going to happen. You're just going to fall over and slide and continue going in exactly the same direction. So grit is key. And I think for cornering, you look at some of the best cornerers in the world. Cornerers? Is that a thing? Yeah, why not? The best cornerers in the world feel for grip and managing grip and And the technique to kind of ensure they have grip, whether they know what they're doing or not, like that, that's the one thing or one of the outcomes I see in their riding. It's like, you know, even, even when you're watching MotoGP or people like the, the way Jet Lawrence corners on his dirt bike and, or Eli Tomac, like there's these sort of masters in each sport. I think Valley does it really well, um, as well. Um, The reason why they have better cornering speed is mostly because they're able to just manage the traction and the grip. So grip for me is what is traction and what is grip. It's really the ability to get the tires to track where you want them to track and to be able to essentially avoid sliding. So whether you're braking or whether you're turning, the whole idea of grip is you have a feel, you have a technique to weight or pressure or push on the tires so that they are rolling and they're not sliding. A wheel in motion is a wheel with traction, right? And something that's locked and sliding, that's where we're losing grip. So for me, grip is all about the ability to avoid the wheel skidding or sliding, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 16:46

Yeah. And like the, the sense of control as a result from that, I think is, you know, is an important sensation of the outcome is that, you know, well, well executed performance and breaking, you know, creating that grip then gives you that sense of control, which is going to unlock the confidence to, you know, to further execute down, down the trails. Maybe you've had the experience or have writers that have experienced Paul of, kind of losing a bit of control in a corner. And then the time that it takes to regain after that could be, could be substantial.

SPEAKER_01: 17:23

Yeah. It's funny because it's, we've had a pretty dark, dry spring in Pemberton and in April, March, April riding was really good, like all time, you know, conditions. And then it's actually starting to dry up already. And even just the other day I was on a ride with, um, Huxley and I let him go first and then I'll catch him up. And I was like, oh my God, it's almost like loose, dry summer conditions already. And just in the last week or two, the grip has disappeared compared to earlier in the season. And yeah, for sure, your cornering speed, your confidence to just let off the brakes or lean in, like the confidence is just not the same. So yeah, as soon as traction comes, Traction is reduced. It impacts everything you do. Thanks for listening, everyone. Christian and I are stoked to be doing this podcast. If you're enjoying the show and want to support us, please take a moment to share our podcast with your friends, families, colleagues, or neighbors by letting them know where they can find us and listen for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever they get their podcasts. The more love we get, the more episodes we can create. Alrighty, get back to the show.

SPEAKER_00: 18:49

our topic here is why we should break in corners. Maybe we'll talk through a couple of myths about breaking in corners as an entryway into this.

SPEAKER_01: 19:02

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a pretty, I was saying the other day on the downtime podcast, like generally speaking these days, there's fewer myths. I feel like we've busted a lot of those myths now. Like you don't lean back when you go downhill and, you know, all these kinds of crazy things and tucking your elbows in and stuff from road riding. Like generally, I think, uh, everybody has a much better understanding of how we ride bikes these days and, um, which is awesome, but there's, there's, there's still some lingering myths for sure. And even the other day I heard this one that like, you know, um, don't break through corners. Um, and I, it was, uh, I don't know if I was on the gypsy tales podcast, um, I can't remember, but they were talking about like the interview was, you know, tell us about like not breaking through corners and letting it go. And the rider was basically like, yeah, for sure, there's a ton of corners where I don't break at all. But a lot of the time I have to break in the corners. So this is definitely one of those ones that's lingered around that, you know, break before the corner and don't break in the corner. And whilst that's true for some corners, like we kind of always talk about in GSNBC, you know, mountain biking is pros and cons, not rights and wrong. It really depends on the shape, the surface, the speed, the intended outcome, your line choice through the corner. Like there's so many variables and, you know, Back behind my house is a perfect example. There's a ton of corners where I'm braking on purpose through the corner with my front brake on because the braking puts all my weight onto the front wheel and increases the traction. So it's actually better, smoother, faster to have a little bit of brake through the corner. So not to skip ahead too much, but yeah, just addressing this idea that essentially it's a little bit of a myth. And The classic reason too, especially in a berm, if you think about it, for you, what happens on a downhill berm if you don't do any braking? What are you struggling with in that scenario? If you're going pretty quick, there's a downhill berm and there's no braking, what do you feel through that?

SPEAKER_00: 21:25

You're typically struggling to manage pressure through that, through the centrifugal force and then your line choice can vary. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 21:38

And I think just the simple physics of a turn, like if you push an obstacle through a radius, it will want to accelerate because essentially the terrain, assuming there's grip, the terrain is basically suddenly pushing you into that new direction and that force can create acceleration. So especially on a bike where you're, In some ways, you're on a frictionless object. There's a little bit of friction with the tires on the ground, but because of the wheels, the nature of a wheel, and assuming there's no real friction in the hubs, you're kind of on a frictionless object. So if you take that turn on flat terrain, but then you put it on a slight downhill gradient, the bikes will naturally want to accelerate. So if you're not ready for that, the bike's going to go ahead and you're going to get... squashed into the backseat a little bit. So we're constantly fighting that acceleration, especially through downhill corners, downhill berms, any kind of banked downhill corner. So yeah, so just sort of understanding all these different variables, different terrain, different gradients, different surface. Is it banked corner? Is it flat corner? We're going to start finding a lot of scenarios where actually breaking into and through the corner is more effective than just the old school, you know, don't break through the corners. If you're breaking through the corners, you're doing it wrong kind of thing.

SPEAKER_00: 23:10

Interesting slight tangent here is the idea that a lot of the trails that we ride today, really modern, well-built mountain bike trails, the designer and the builder have thought through these ideas for corners and are, you know, creating, creating designs where the train itself is actually going to slow you down before you come into a turn, like on a modern kind of a modern flow trail. And so it's kind of interesting to think about, you know, like if you're, if you're just riding flow trails, like this, this concept, the concept of breaking might not resonate and you might not be able to develop this skill because that the trail itself has been built to minimize breaking. Which, which, which to me, you know, the two, the taking on and off the two different hats that I kind of have as a coach and then a trail person, you know, like you really need as a, as a writer and a coach, you need to be seeking out lots of different kinds of trails because, you know, just, just writing modern, modern trails that are designed for this. It's we might not like, we don't need to break as much.

SPEAKER_01: 24:24

Yeah.

UNKNOWN: 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 24:25

Yeah, it's funny how many times I've done breaking lesson in a bike park and then you kind of, you know, your little spiel, your demo, whatever it is, and you head down the trail and then everybody follows you and then you stop after a while and you're like, okay, so shoot, we didn't really need to break down there at all. Right. We need to go find a more technical trail where we actually have to break. Yeah, totally. I totally agree with you. And in a part, I love that because... the whole kind of idea of flow state is essentially consistent speed. And ideally if the terrain can manage our speed and we've got minimal break in, like that's where a rider can really get into that, that flow state. And hence the term, you know, flow trails, but lots of different ways to enjoy riding bikes. So yeah, it's, I really liked that idea. And I think a good trail design does have that. It has that sort of, you know, if there's a downhill right hand berm, the entrance of the berm, the trail might curve slightly up to the left just to slow you down. And then at the exit of the berm, it will kind of overturn a little bit and even slightly turn back up the hill a tiny bit because they know the rider's going to accelerate through the turn. And essentially that's just minor trail building apart from anything else because there's less wear and tear because we all know Brakes rip up trails and cause all the braking bumps and stuff. It's really cool to ride. It's more flowy, but it's a more sustainable way to build trails too.

SPEAKER_00: 25:58

For sure. Well, let's get into some of the hows here with braking through the corners. Maybe before we do that, not braking in the turn is a myth, but there's also a bit of a myth of trying to brake before the turn to get, you know, do most of your turn breaking before the turn. Have you heard that in your circles?

SPEAKER_01: 26:25

Yeah. And I think, you know, we, we often talk about more or less breaking rather than breaking and not breaking, you know, so just how to add a bit of quantity to it. But I mean, generally speaking, if you go back to traction, you know, we want maximum contact patch of the tire on the ground and we want sort of the big meaty tire knobs working for us when we're braking. And we want to try and control forces in one plane, right? So if we're going straight and we're braking, you know, the bike is sort of upright perpendicular to the terrain. And if we put on the anchors, we're essentially just controlling forces fore and aft. So it's easier as a rider to kind of maintain our position, control those forces, resist the forces. But then from the tire's perspective, the tire is only having to deal with essentially a fore-aft kind of energy force through the tire as you're slowing down. So the tire is in a good position to handle with the grip, and then the rider is in a good place to sort of just deal with forces in that position. in that kind of four-hour front-to-back plane. So it does make sense, you know, and then we all know that steering under braking can arguably be more difficult because we're, you know, we're braking, we're tensing up as a rider because we have to, we want to brace as we brake so our body doesn't flop forward. It stays in a good place on the bike. So logic tells us that, yeah, generally speaking, if we're braking and we're heavy braking, we want to just do it in a straight line. And then if we're turning and now we're dealing with sort of lateral forces, rotational forces, fore and aft forces, we're dealing with all of these forces. So it makes sense if the brakes are off, we're going to have more traction on the tires, arguably because we're not resisting any momentum and a rolling tire has more grip. And as we spoke about for a sliding or skidding tire is less grip. So if we're not breaking, we're going to, make sure that the tires are rolling we've got grip and then we can it's easier as a body if we're not breaking we're more relaxed so we can lean the bike we can rotate we can do all the other movements we need to do to deal with uh for our flat or rotational kind of planes that's happening as soon as you start turning and changing directions so it does make sense generally more breaking before less breaking during but But I guess on the flip side, it's like, that's where we can get into the when piece, the timing piece, because does that mean as soon as you start to turn, the brakes have to be off? Or is it just both brakes have to be off or one brake has to be off? So how much freedom... does a rider have to adjust that timing of when do they do more of the braking and when do they do less of the braking? And once that transition, is it before the corner, in the corner, before the apex? Is it at the exit of the corner? So yeah, the timing piece is a lot more nuanced. And I think that's where there can be a little bit of a myth of you always brake before and you always try and release the brake. through the corner. And whilst that's true for a lot of corners, there's just too many variables in mountain biking for that to be a hard and fast rule that you apply all the time. For sure.

SPEAKER_00: 30:04

And I think on the flip side of myths, maybe there's the concept of often riders not being aware of when they're braking and defaulting to dragging the brakes when they're going downhill and just not... just as a default mechanism of this is how I go downhill and not being aware of I need to break more here at this point or less here at this point.

SPEAKER_01: 30:32

Yeah, that's really popular or really common rather. Essentially, they're just not being purposeful about it and they don't have the awareness to be selective. And they're not actively sort of choosing things. Okay, where's my breaking zones? Essentially, breaking just boils down to breaking zones. Here's where I want to do more breaking. Here's where I want to do less breaking. And it's just being mindful and purposeful about that selection, basically.

SPEAKER_00: 31:06

Thanks for listening, everybody. Paul and I get a lot out of this project. We hope you do too. If you'd like to help us grow this show, check out our Patreon. By becoming a supporter, you can help us cover the cost of the show as well as help us make this an exceptional show with great topics and insightful guests. You can find a link on our website, themountainbikecoachingpodcast.buzzsprout.com. Thanks. Let's get back to the show. For me, this goes back to Kind of ties back to goal setting, you know, thinking about a rider and coaching, coaching a rider to be better at braking. You're like, what is, what is the goal that they're trying to achieve in riding in their riding? You know, are they trying to become a racer or are they racing, trying to get faster, you know, or is it to be in more control, you know, and looking to move from intermediate train to, you know, to more, you difficult train. So being able to, again, kind of tie, tie their awareness back to a specific goal, I think is going to help us as coaches then drive what, what the learning is, because it's not, there's not a, there's not a one size fits all for how to do this, you know, and it's, it's pros and cons of lots of checklists that we, that we look at. I

SPEAKER_01: 32:24

mean, I was just thinking too, like, this is a perfect topic to, to, kind of showcase skills coaching. I mean, this is why you need to go get a skills coach because you can watch a YouTube video on like, oh, this is where you want to try and break more. And this is where you want to try and break less. But there's so many variables and so many nuances and so many different ways to edit the ratio of breaking, you know, more front, less rear, more rear, less front, or the timing and a banked corner, flat corner, tight radius, open radius, whatever. there's just so many variables and that's where the skills coach is going to work with you over time to a not just give you feedback on what you're doing because because you can't really see a lot of the time you can't really see or feel exactly what you're doing and it's nice to have someone watch you but but that all those variables is exactly what a good skills coach will do is they'll take you through kind of a a logical progression kind of isolate different variables one at a time and, and basically make all the nuanced kind of quote unquote complicated stuff, basically just break it down and make it seem logical and simple. So it's, it's a good advert. Sure. It's a good reminder for why, you know, we do what we do, which is in-person skills coaching. Cause yeah, you can't just get it off a quick, napkin in a bar or a quick two-minute YouTube video, right? There's so much to it.

SPEAKER_00: 33:52

Well, I think this echoes back to the first episode of this season, the coaching versus instruction. We're talking about coaching at this point, and often breaking is approached as instruction. It's kind of a one-off. Here's how you break. And the reality is that there's... 15 lessons you know

SPEAKER_03: 34:17

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 34:17

you know per session that you could get into but and that's why you know this is a lot effective braking and performance braking is is something that's long term and it's going to require a lot of a lot of nuance

SPEAKER_01: 34:33

yeah and you know in that i like the way you say that because it reminds me of like you know we always say your stability your position on the bike is a skill that's the most fundamental but it's a skill that you're constantly work on even pros are working on it and for me braking is is the other one for that for sure like we're pretty good at braking how long we've been riding mountain bikes 30 years or whatever like we're pretty good i can do a pretty decent stoppie if i want to right like and i've seen you do some pretty sick stoppies but um i could still get so much better at My braking points, braking harder in shorter distances, less skidding on steep terrain, trusting the front brake more, learning to ride on the front brake more in really steep technical terrain. I'm a little bit too on and off for it. So yeah, braking is like a never-ending project, right?

SPEAKER_00: 35:28

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, especially that front brake. Yeah. So it's very, the nuance, the elusiveness of the braking the, the bite point and, you know, and maintaining grip, especially on, on loose, loose terrain. I'm remembering that steep trail we rode recently. It was very loose and struggling, struggling in the, in the wet to maintain, maintain

SPEAKER_01: 35:54

traction. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 35:56

Yeah. That was cool.

SPEAKER_01: 35:58

That was sweet. You remember that, you remember that trail we rode last year, like behind my house, the really loose one. And then Silas rode that like I rode it. And it was like, I can't remember if I did ride it. But Silas rode it and made it look really easy.

SPEAKER_00: 36:18

Overnight sensation.

SPEAKER_01: 36:20

Yeah, yeah. And he had that shoot. And it was so loose because it was like mid-late summer. It was just so powdery and loose. And he rode it so well. But he had the front brake on probably. probably the whole time, all the way through that thing, right? Whereas I was a little bit too on-off when I went over that drop. I was a little off, I think. So I didn't quite get it back, but anyway. It was so loose. Yeah,

SPEAKER_00: 36:46

crazy

SPEAKER_01: 36:46

loose.

SPEAKER_00: 36:47

But you know that, just to echo again, back to performance factors, how much does effective breaking and confidence as a mental skill, how much aligned are those two concepts? you know, that people say, you know, trust your brakes, but then that the work that you have to do to actually make that happen is, is quite significant.

SPEAKER_01: 37:13

Yeah. There has to be a lot of technical skill development for you to learn, to trust your brakes.

SPEAKER_00: 37:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 37:19

You know, yeah, it's, it's a lot easier said than done.

SPEAKER_00: 37:23

Yeah. And I think that, you know, especially kids that are growing up with the amazing bikes that they have and riding the amazing trails, they're, they're able to develop those, those habits and, Back to the start, they can build their skill house quicker than we can and then expand it to their heart's content.

SPEAKER_01: 37:44

Totally. And I think as a sidebar a little bit, I still find myself riding... This sort of sounds silly, but a little bit like riding like I'm riding in the 90s. Like, oh, there's a drop. Don't touch your front brake and lean back a little bit and... And be careful. But then I kind of forget that like, no, I'm on a 2024 bike and I can be on the front brake because the front tires have so much more grip. Like it's funny how subconsciously, I think for me at least, I still revert a little bit back to thinking it's gnarlier than it is because I grew up for years and years and years riding, trying to ride difficult stuff on horrible bikes. And so I think without meaning to, I kind of revert back to, oh, don't touch the brake over that drop, but really I should be riding over that drop into that chute with the front brake on. Because a modern bike can handle that and the geometry's there and the grip's there and the brake control's there. So I think that's where kids that are growing up on bikes these days, or even adults coming into the sport these days, they're not fighting any of that, you know, old school ingrained bad habits that might just crop up every now and then. I don't know if you relate to that, but that's a bit of a sidebar, maybe.

SPEAKER_00: 39:17

Yeah, I think anybody that has spent any time on V-brakes, let alone cantilever brakes, you know, it's kind of a... kind of a squeeze and hope kind of situation, especially

SPEAKER_01: 39:32

if it's wet. I swear the brakes I had in my rally lizard would be like in the wet, I would squeeze them. And I, I, they were so bad at sometimes I felt like where I started to accelerate when I put the brakes on. Cause they were that bad. Cause you would expect it to slow you down, but then it didn't slow you down at all. So it kind of felt like you were starting to accelerate with the brakes on. Right.

SPEAKER_00: 39:54

They were just, Ridiculous. I remember, you know, having to, if you're buying new V-brake pads, you had different color choices, you know, based on the conditions, you know, your red ones and blue ones and, you know, based on

SPEAKER_01: 40:10

if it's going to be wet or it's going to be muddy or it's going to be dry. They were so crap. I'm so, I'm so stoked on modern bikes. Cool. So how do we brake? How do we... What are some key things here to avoid this, you know, if we go back to traction and avoiding the skidding? What are some sort of thoughts from you in terms of just how we brake, whether it's applying the lever, the force in the lever, or whether it's pressure on the bike? Where do you start with that?

SPEAKER_00: 40:40

I think really the logical starting point, I think, is understanding how to apply the brakes gradually from the beginning.

SPEAKER_02: 40:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00: 40:49

So like thinking biomechanically, how your lever is set up, making sure that your anatomy of your hands is matching the brake that you're using so that you can effectively squeeze the brakes in a gradual way so that you can get the force to the stopping point that you desire as quickly as possible without turning it on and off. I think that's kind of a logical starting point. for just understanding the kind of the how, how to brake.

SPEAKER_01: 41:21

I really like that you mentioned brake lever position because you could almost do a whole episode on just dialing in brake lever position. But Roxy Bike Coaching, check her out on YouTube. She has a really good video on brake lever position. And it does address one of the common things I see, which is people having the levers too steep, kind of the same angle as their forearm a little bit. And it often makes it a little too steep. And... lever positioning is huge in terms of that. Like you said, that anatomy and biomechanics and the control of your fingers, um, two millimeters, a few degrees. Um, it, it makes a big difference to spending time on your brake lever setup is, is huge. I can't understand that enough because, um, it's key, but yeah, squeezing the brakes gradually, squeezing them consistently. Like I, I kind of, I find that the hardest one when, when, um, being pressured if you're trying to break quickly or you're breaking through a rough steep section and you're trying to sort of keep the braking power on and keep the brakes engaged but as the terrain is changing you're trying to avoid the skidding so it's sort of that consistent braking power maxed matched with a bit of an ability to adjust that power as the wheel gains or loses traction. So you've still got that braking, that brake applied, so you're controlling your speed or slowing down, but you're constantly adjusting things so that you're minimising or avoiding the skidding and That's easy. If you're on like a flat ground car park and you do an emergency stop, it's pretty easy to control. But if you're on a gradient and the gradient keeps changing and the surface keeps changing, all of a sudden those basic concepts actually become quite difficult. And I was just running an apprentice coach course the other day in Kimberley for GSNBC. And we just spent a little bit of time working on their kind of emergency stops. And these are all adults. They've been mountain biking for years. And the amount of practice they could all benefit from from just doing some front brake drills in the driveway. Front brake only, get low, get low, brace. The body position is such a big part of how we brake, like understanding how to connect with your bike so that you and the bike become one. So that when the bike slows down in an emergency stop or under hard braking, you know, you're not that floppy jelly that sort of wobbles over to the handlebars and falls over the front of the bike. You're just one solid unit. And as long as your center of mass is basically behind the front tire contact patch, it's going to be very unlikely that you're going to rotate forward enough to go over the handlebars. So the idea is not to move back. That's a common myth, right? Even that myth is still around. Heavy braking, move back. But you can... There's a difference between moving back on the bike and just nudging the bike slightly forward underneath you. Like if I lower my heels and I get low and I kind of brace, the bike might move maybe one inch forward underneath me, maybe two inches. But essentially, and that just helps me go into a position of strength to brace against the handlebars, to brace against the pedals. So when the bike suddenly slows down, I can resist those forces and keep my body where I want it to be and not let it sort of get shoved forward over the handlebars. And it's that connecting with the bike that's key. And I want to keep my weight fairly centered. We always say like close to center when you're braking because you want the pressure on the front wheel. So Maybe, Christian, if you talk about the next bit, the pressure piece and why pressure on the tires and how we achieve that through body position, why that's so important for

SPEAKER_00: 45:36

braking. I mean, that's what it's all about. So we're creating... Anytime that we're on a gradient and we're braking, we're creating more force, more traction. And so over force, we're skidding. Like if we've got... If we're resisting too much, we're going to have a negative result there. And so maintaining that position, maintaining a more centered position relative to what your pitch is and applying the brakes is going to give us the control that we need through pressure management. And one of the things that... I just want to go back for just a second. One of the things I think is difficult... is for writers to understand the modulation piece. And you started to mention that. I want to unpack that for just a second. The actual, the management of how can, once you are braking, how can you manage more pressure on the brake and less pressure, more braking or less braking, based on what's happening? And one of the things that I think about with this is the... connectedness piece. And what, what I like to connect here with writers is the connection of the sensation in your hands of breaking with the sound of what your tires are doing. I like that. And so like those two pieces together can help build our awareness for what's actually happening. Cause we can, we can kind of sense speed, but once we, we dial in, especially on, on rockier rockier terrain, we, Um, we, we, we can hear it.

SPEAKER_01: 47:19

Okay. So we just wanted to take a quick break to say thanks for listening. And if you're a writer or coach out there and you have an idea for a topic or feature episode, feel free to let us know through the comments on our Instagram page at Donuts and Bikes. We're always happy to hear your suggestions from our listeners on what we do or ways to make the podcast better. Thanks, team. Let's get back to the show. Yeah, I like that because sometimes we talk about how the pressure into the brake lever can change, but the position of the lever doesn't necessarily change a little bit. And so, I mean, it obviously does change a tiny bit, but it's sort of a way to think about it in your head where you can control the power going into the brake. You can adjust that power going into the brake. And it's these sort of minuscule movements. And you can literally practice it just standing next to your bike or standing over your bike and just put the brakes on and notice the lever gets to some sort of position and then just practice easing the squeeze or increasing the squeeze. And you'll notice that for sure the lever moves a tiny bit, but from a sort of kinesthetic point of view, like just what you're feeling, It really, that's where the difference is noted more. So, so I think when people think about adjusting the lever, they might visualize the lever going in and out, but really it's, it's, it's, I mean, it's doing that a tiny bit, but really the main thing is you're just feeling the squeeze, the power in your squeeze. It's just changing slightly lighter squeeze or a slightly stronger squeeze. Um, and that's something you can, you can definitely, definitely practice. Um, without even writing just practice those kind of micro micro adjustments to the the squeezing pressure i guess to put a label on it

SPEAKER_00: 49:23

yeah now now back to your pressure question you know pressure and grip are so nicely correlated you know as i'm thinking about our stability in corners with with that, we really kind of separate front and rear tire and front and rear pressure and what we're trying to achieve with that, you know? And so, so often if we're trying to achieve more grip on that front wheel, we might be, we might be breaking harder on the front to get more grip on, on, at the beginning of a turn, if it's steeper and then shifting the pressure a bit, and biasing the rear wheel at the exit to get more grip on it for direction control as we accelerate out of the turn. And so we have that ability to manage pressure fore-aft so that we can more effectively achieve what we're after. Yeah,

SPEAKER_01: 50:17

totally. And I think for the listeners, just really understanding the difference... the importance of your position on the bike to create pressure on the tires. And if without the pressure on the tire, the traction isn't high and then the braking, that's where the braking disappears. So if you want to use the front brake and you want to maximize grip on the front wheel, you can't be moving your body back because you're just taking loads of weight and therefore pressure away from the front wheel. And then the front wheel won't have the grip to brake. And similar, you know, similar idea there for the back wheel like we need to stay fairly centered so that there's plenty of weight on the back wheel but I think the other thing to maybe sort of add in here to the conversation which is important is the two scenarios of braking one is to brake to slow down and reduce speed and or stop so basically braking to slow down versus braking to not speed up so In other words, kind of braking to maintain speed. And that's where things can really change in terms of your technique or which brake you prioritize. And if you're braking to slow down quickly, you need more front brake, less rear brake. Because under hard braking, the front tyre gets heavy, the back tyre gets light. So you want more front brake and less rear brake. Otherwise, the back brake just skids. So braking to slow down, front brake heavy for sure, and assuming the trail has grip and the tyre has grip. But then braking to not speed up, well, I don't need a ton of braking power. And so arguably, I don't need the front brake at all. You know, if it's a downhill berm, I can just lightly... kind of drag the back brake through the berm, not because I want to slow down, but just because I want to stop that bike from accelerating away from me. I want to kind of maintain a stacked, strong center dish position through the berm and a little, we call it trail braking, but a little bit of that trail braking, just dragging the back brake through the turn, it's enough to just keep the bike underneath me and to maintain my speed. Um, but it's not so much that it upsets the bike. It makes it harder to steer or harder to lean or anything like that. So I think going back to the myths a little bit, sometimes the myths kind of creep in or kind of old school ways of teaching breaking creep in because people aren't understanding what's the outcome that we want without breaking right now. And, um, is it slowing down or is it just maintaining speed and understanding those two things are very different is really important because how you break in those two scenarios is very different because the outcomes are kind of completely different. And even the forces in the physics are very different. So yeah, breaking to slow down versus breaking to not speed up.

SPEAKER_00: 53:21

Yeah. I think that ties nicely back to the beginning and our goals and how those, those two outcomes are, are very, very different. And that's going to make our performance within the skill very different. And becoming more aware of that will help as a good starting point.

SPEAKER_01: 53:42

Yeah, like a classic scenario is like a tech trail. You're typically breaking a fair bit into tight corners to slow down, because it's a tech trail. So there's probably not a berm, or there's not the same sort of machine built berm. And so you naturally have to slow down more for the corners. Or maybe there's a drop or a really rooty section or something. And well, I need to drop some speed. I need to slow down before this rough stuff. Whereas on like a flow trail, like we kind of mentioned before, there's a lot of the trail design where the whole idea is that it's a flow trail. So you don't necessarily need to slow down really hard, or maybe you need to slow down a little bit as there might be a bit of, you know, front and back breaking. But a lot of the time on those flow trails, you can just more or less get away with just maintaining speed, a little bit of back brake, just so I don't speed up here, a little bit of back brake through the corner, just so I keep the bike underneath me here. You're just very gently touching that back brake. So people sometimes misconstrue, you know, my back brake pads wear out quicker than my front brake pads. So I must prioritize, I use my back brake pads. more of the time but they're not understanding the difference between how often do you have the brake on versus how hard do you squeeze it when it is on so the front brake generally is used arguably less often but when you use it there's more power whereas the the dragging brake it's it's on all the time and that sort of light pressure but just It's on a lot with the back brake. That's what kills the brake pads. Creates a lot of heat with the dragging. And in terms of time, they're on way more than the front brake, even if the pressure's lighter. So yeah, understanding the difference between how often you have a brake on and the force that you put into a brake. So again, just understanding these nuances and how that really builds into your goals. What am I trying to do? And then now that I know that goal, how do I do it? What about the two one zero? I wouldn't mind just touching on that quickly.

SPEAKER_00: 55:50

Okay.

SPEAKER_01: 55:52

Cause that's something that, that pops up.

SPEAKER_00: 55:57

Yeah. Yeah. I think the two one zero breaking really simply put is entering a corner, but breaks on part of the way through the berm, the corner it's rear brake only. And then at the exit it's zero brakes. Okay.

SPEAKER_02: 56:14

yeah

SPEAKER_00: 56:15

you know and so it's just kind of a simple concept but um encourage everyone to go if you're not familiar with it go go give it give it some tries because it's it's an interesting sensation um

SPEAKER_01: 56:28

yeah totally and the nice thing i like about it is it's it's applicable to a lot of corners it's applicable to especially berms like downhill berms for sure is is both brakes to slow down if you need before the corner so there's always that caveat because on sometimes you don't necessarily need to slow down a ton. You're just managing some of the speed that you already have. But yeah, two breaks to slow down if you need. And then once you start the corner, it's like one break through the corner. And then every corner will have that natural point where the rider just feels, I can let it go. And often that's around the apex where you might just let that back break go. But in recent times, I've tweaked it because I feel like especially with teaching kids, it can change because they get a bit confused with the front and back brakes and what's two and what's one. Is one like I keep the front brake on? So I'll just say both back, none, both brakes, then the back brake, and then no brakes. And like you mentioned, the timing does change. It might be both brakes up to the apex, one brake down, in the back brake through the second half of the corner and then no brakes on the exit, like a steep downhill corner, it might be that. Or if it's a fairly flat gradient, you know, both brakes before the corner, one brake into the first metre of the corner and then no brakes through the rest of the corner, the apex and the exit. So the timing of the both back none really depends on, yeah, size, shape of the turn, the speed coming into it, the speed that you want coming out of it, because it depends on the exit of the trail. You might want to come out of the corner fast because there's a jump after it, or you might want to come out of the corner slow because there's another tight turn and it goes into a steep rock roll or something. So the corner might be completely the same, but the exit might be completely different. So your intended outcome is completely different. But yeah, both back. It's really easy to remember and it's something I think listeners can just take away and start thinking about straight away on their next ride. Whatever the corner is, try and follow that little progression of both back none and see if it gives you that happy medium of controlling traction, controlling your speed, but also maintaining speed. Because ultimately, if you can maintain speed through corners, A, you're going to beat your friends and that's always good. And B, it's more efficient. That's the flow state. That's where that cool feeling of doing a corner and being like, oh my God, that felt awesome. Anytime it felt awesome is because you know you maintain speed and you're not having to pedal to get up to speed or pump madly or whatever it is. It's that feeling of, oh my God, I railed that corner. So braking is one of the tools that we can do to hopefully get that rad feeling through the corners. Awesome. Hey, I think you have a donut for us. I do. Slightly different tactic this week. So I've been, because we've been doing a bunch of episodes, so I can't eat this many donuts. It just would be irresponsible. But yeah, so I've actually been researching donut shops and kind of picking one that looks awesome. So there's this one. It's sort of near my friends in Bristol in the UK called Catley's and you can check them out on Instagram. It's Catley's underscore, but they do these lemon meringue donuts and these like strawberry rhubarb donuts. And I was just going through their Instagram account. I was like, next time I'm in the UK, I'm going to try and get to this place because it looks unreal. And it looks like they do really good coffee as well. But yeah, There is a lot of really good-looking donuts on this place, and I'm getting very, very excited to get back to the UK. And it even looks like they have a creme brulee donut as well. Nutella donuts. This place looks like the bomb. So I haven't eaten there. I don't know. But in the interest of talking about donuts but not constantly eating donuts, I thought this might be a– happy medium is to start researching places. So any listeners in the UK, if you're in the Bristol area, go check out Catley's because I have a pretty good eye for bakeries on Instagram. You know, I follow quite a few and I can tell the rubbish ones from the good ones. And this Catley's place looks legit. There's even this ice cream looking cronut thing. that looks like it's in a cup of coffee. Like this place just looks like heaven. So, um,

SPEAKER_00: 1:01:35

you know, I think, um, rhubarb and a donut makes it pretty healthy.

SPEAKER_01: 1:01:40

Rhubarb custard. Yeah. Well, I mean, a lot of donuts do have fruit in them, like strawberry donuts. I think rhubarb though is extra healthy. Nutella donuts is nuts and people say nuts are really good for you. So it's just, it's good, healthy eating. Right on. Thanks, Paul. This was fun. Thanks, buddy. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00: 1:02:03

Yeah, we'll do it again soon. All right, that brings us to the end of another episode of Donuts and Bikes. We hope this conversation elevated your understanding of breaking through corners from a rider's and or a coach's perspective. We'd like to think that riding bikes isn't rocket science. It's really more about the pros and cons rather than rights and wrongs. Please take care if you're using any of this information discussed in this episode, and you can find our full disclaimer to website from mountbikecoachingpodcast.bosprout.com. Stay safe, ride smart, coach smarter, And we'll see you next time.