I’ve been told you should always be on either the throttle or the brakes. Any “floating” is simply wasted acceleration or deceleration. Brake as hard and late as you can, chuck it on its ear and get straight on the gas. That was Hodgy on a 1 to 1 session.
Problem is that we all kinda approximate stuff especially when we are learning (all the time) and/or explaining it to others, it was a big change for me moving to braking (and accelerating) whilst leaned over as I'd learned the more road style CSS way for decades which isn't particularly fast on track. Yes we need to keep the front compressed whilst tipping in, and I worked very hard braking TO the apex, but this is wrong - if any of you/us closely analyse what the TOP guys do they are all off the front brake before they reach the apex and it's surprising just how far they are from the apex when they do unload the front, well it surprised me anyway. You can see this clearly from the MotoGP footage is you can manage to save it and be bothered to spend the, not inconsiderable, time it take, to review it and slow it all down to make viewing what's really happening possible. It is much easier if you have the telemetry displays too as that shows brake pressure and throttle opening which really helps understand what is going on in detail. There's a YouTube video where Simon Crafar explains it well and I'll post it here later when I find it, it just so happens I discussed this very subject with him a couple of weeks ago (at Silverstone).
Yeah I'd always believed that too, turns out that is also wrong! If you watch the fastest guys they will be on a 'maintenance throttle' a lot whilst cornering. It's just not as black and white as we'd all like it to be, or as black and white as it's explained to us.
Here’s my general rule but the graphic isn’t exactly matching. I would be easing off the brake completely at around the 50% marker in this graphic because I’m not that brave but I don’t complete all of my braking before beginning the turn. I use the increased grip to start the turn mostly then gradually reduce braking as I head to the apex. All of this differs per corner, track surface, tire pressure, etc.
Anyway....this is about transitioning from front to rear weighting.... I love the onboard stuff, and there are numerous pictures of the front lifting barely after the apex so the gas is already would quite hard open. But we don’t have the skills or equipment of these guys Maintenance throttle is open throttle. So technically you are either on the gas or brakes. Crafar and Dickerson both teach that braking to the apex isn’t crucial, but braking ina straight line isn’t enough. Whereas CSS is about gas before apex, something I have always done well and is perfect on a small bike but shit on a big ‘un
FWIW the GP guys will be releasing the lever fully just after the 25% BP marker in that image. It's also surprising how quickly they do release it - they set the rebound damping on their forks to ensure the front end doesn't 'pop up' for this off-brake transition.
. To be more precise - Crafar advocates NOT braking to the apex, I don't know about what Dickerson says. Agreed that effectively a maintenance throttle is 'on the gas'. What's missing from the graphic @Ash34 posted is throttle position (TP) which would help this conversation a lot - the area between 25% and 0% BP would show some TP in reality.
OK I can't find that Crafar video at the moment and need to get on with something else for a while but... This guys totally nails it at 7:26 :
Except Code advocates picking up the gas way before the apex. Not that he says that: he and his coaches don’t say anything at all!! Taught to respond to a question with a quiestion and use language like ‘what is good for me may not be for you, so test and find out yourself’
