Breaking Tips

3 Step Braking Techniques

Your motocross braking skills are your right-a-way to speed! Your ability to stop or slow down is directly related to your ability to maintain speed through corners.
Good braking techniques are largely overlooked by most C riders and many B riders.
But motocross braking skills  are just as important as clutch and throttle skills.
Both front and rear brakes are equally important but this riding tip is just going to cover the Motocross 3 Step Braking Techniques which use the rear brake.

When the throttle goes off the rear brake should come on. In some situations this is not as necessary on 450 four strokes as on 250 four strokes because the 450 usually aren’t revving as high as the 250s. There for the 250s will have more engine braking. This rear brake technique does apply more to 450Fs because they don’t have as much engine braking as 250s.

Of course 2 strokes don’t have as much engine braking either. Therefore this 3 step rear braking technique is even more crucial on those machines as well as smaller 2 strokes.

Here’s the way this 3 step braking technique works:
While standing and riding down a straight-away into a corner, when the throttle goes off the rear brake goes on while the rider’s body position is in the back position, the rear brake  must continue to be controlled while the rider goes from standing to sitting. This is usually about a quarter way into the corner. Now the rider is controlling the rear brake while sitting on the front part of the seat, continuing to control the rear brake until he gets on the clutch and throttle to exit the corner. Only at that time is the rear brake released.

One slight exception is when the track is really bumpy all the way to the transition (where you go from braking to accelerating). Then you would stand longer, sit at the transition and let go of the rear brake as you get on the clutch and throttle.

Learn how all of the 55 Absolute Techniques of Motocross work and how you can make them become part of your natural riding style with my VOD Streaming Video platform. 

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