Learn Rear Braking for Mountain Bike Racers

Video Transcript

"So, I just went into a corner that was pretty sharp, downhill and kind of pulled me down the hill. I used both my front and my back brakes to get through that corner, pretty quickly and pretty in control. But we are going to focus on the back brake here. And what I do with the back brake is that, you know, I slowed down before by getting on my front brake real hard. And then, because that corner (if you look at it) is really tight right at the beginning and then gets longer. What I did to get into that corner, is I tapped my back brake a little bit, just to break the back end loose. I mean, it's a more advanced technique. It's kind of a skid, but also, it's just a tenth of a second just to do it. And I mean, I can show you, I'll try to ride through that corner right now just using my back brakes and not using my front brakes and you'll see how much less in-control I really am. I went into the corner pretty slow, and just skidded the whole way. If everyone did that every time they went out and rode a trail, there'd be a huge pile of just loose dirt there. It would just pull everything apart. But, as you can see, it didn't look (fundamentally) that much different. So, you've got the front brake for slowing you down; the back brake for that extra deceleration when you need it and any time when you need to break the back end loose to get around an obstacle. Also, you know, when you are climbing, and you have to stop, locking the back brake is like a parking brake in a car. It keeps the bike from rolling backwards, so you can get back on it and do other things. So that's the gist of braking. "