Here is my free novella about low traction cornering. There is a ton of good material in this thread already, and I’m reiterating some points for clarity. Brake/power sliding around low traction corners is one of my favorite things about riding. Obviously, you should practice this in an area where you are unlikely to encounter oncoming traffic or the consequences to overshooting a turn are low (no trees/cliffs.)
The following drills assume a stable and effective standing riding posture. Weight and bike contact is focused in the pegs, assisted by the legs/knees, and there is almost no weight on the bars. In fact, this is the last time you’ll hear about the handlebars at all. Let them do their thing.
Getting comfortable breaking traction and regaining traction in corners is a skillset that can result in speed but more importantly it will allow you to stop abruptly.
Any use of ABS or traction control in these drills will limit one’s ability to consistently and reliably train the muscle memory to break and regain traction. Turn it all off at least for focused practice. It is an excellent safety feature, but a dead end for developing deep and transferable skills.
Here are two drills that helped me build confidence, speed, and a safety margin in low-traction turns. All drills assume a flat, low-traction gravel or dirt surface in a safe open area or road with sufficient visibility. Reps are the key here, we’re not just learning a theoretical concept, we’re training our reflexes. The goal is to train our body to respond to rapidly changing conditions and circumstances, so that we can respond quickly and correctly without having to think about it. Practicing intentionally for 10-15 minutes every time you ride will likely yield faster results than practicing for two hours straight every so often. As was mentioned earlier in the thread, it is best to start with brake slides before power slides because it’s easier to go fast than it is to slow down. This way you’ll already be in greater control when you start applying more power and increasing speed. These techniques can and should be integrated into regular riding, but it’s easiest to isolate them in a safe and controlled environment first.
- Brake Slides
Start by travelling in a straight line in a standing position at 20-25mph. Apply rear brake pressure until the rear tire locks and begins to slide. Gently release brake pressure to regain traction and control. Try this with your hips forward over the tank, and with your hips rearward over the seat to feel the difference. Try this with more weight on one peg or the other. Can you continue to steer while your rear tire is locked?
Any time the slide feels uncontrollable, gently release brake pressure. This release is the muscle memory we need to train for safe braking on low traction surfaces.
Once this feels comfortable, predictable, and even boring in a straight line, repeat the drill but add just the slightest turn. At 20-25mph, in a slight turn, while standing, look through the apex of your turn and apply rear brake pressure until the rear tire breaks traction. Instead of tracking straight in a slide, the rear tire will begin to slide to the outside of the turn. Again, gently release brake pressure to regain traction and stand the bike up. Repeat this drill with your hips forward, and to the rear, and with more weight on the inside peg or the outside peg. Playing with weight shifting and weight transfer will lead to a looser relationship between your body and the bike. Many people will try to “give away the answer” at this stage by explicitly describing which peg to weight or where to position your hips, etc. In practice, I’m seeing most people improve much faster when they experiment for themselves and experience the results of various positions. We are attempting to decouple our body from the bike, so that it can turn and lean beneath us.
This drill can be repeated and accentuated until you are effectively steering with the rear brake, and releasing it at the right moment to allow you to regain traction and be travelling in a new direction. Once the rear brake slide is committed to muscle memory (this could take days or months, not hours, don’t rush it) the front brake can be incorporated as well, at 20-30% the pressure of the rear. It is quite possible to lock both the rear and then the front while entering a full sideways “hockey stop” and scrub a ton of speed while changing direction and setting up for your next line. I’ve successfully avoided two near accidents this year with a full sideways hockey stop when a truck or side-by-side quickly pulled out into a gravel road in front of me. I was grateful to have spent so many hours sliding around turns on purpose.
- Power Slides
Once again, the goal is slow, incremental progression. Depending on the bike and the surface, breaking traction can be accomplished through the throttle alone, or through a combination of throttle and clutch control. A lower torque bike or a higher traction surface will necessitate use of the clutch to break rear wheel traction. While power application with the clutch is harder to learn initially because there are more inputs happening simultaneously, clutch work is a more useful and transferable skill set. Due to the range of circumstances and bikes, etc I’m going to simplify all of this as “increase power” or “decrease power” for the rest of the drill.
In a straight line, while standing, travelling at around 20-25mph, increase power until you break rear traction. To regain traction and control, release power. Again, try this with your hips in different positions, and weighting one peg or the other. Generally, you will want to move your hips and center of gravity forward to counteract the acceleration and decrease weight on the rear tire, which will allow it to break free more easily. The muscle memory we’re training here is to regain traction and control through decreasing power.
Once this feels predictable, comfortable, and even boring, we can introduce a slight turn. Same thing as the brake slides, 20-25mph in a slight turn, looking through the turn, increase power until the rear tire breaks traction. The rear will start to slide to the outside of your turn, the bike may start to lean underneath you. Decrease power to regain traction and control, and the bike will stand up.
To develop and accentuate the skill, you can start with a sharper turn at the same speed before increasing power. The rear will slide out more quickly, but gently decreasing power will have the same effect of regaining traction and control.
Have fun, be safe.
A note on coming from cycling:
There are at least two reasons this is different than a MTB. The physics and muscle memory of high speed turns on gravel can be practiced and ‘felt’ at low and therefore safe speeds. 20-25 mph is plenty. A controlled lowside on gravel in full gear is unlikely to result in serious injury. You will fare much better sliding in moto armor than you will in the silky underwear that I’ve seen you cyclists wearing. If you practicing braking technique first, and then adding power progressively, you may never need to slide out at all.
The MTB also has drastically less gyroscopic effect. Breaking traction and spinning the rear wheel in a turn will cause the bike to slide out from under you, but also increases the gyroscopic forces that make the bike want to “stand up”. This is why a rapid and aggressive increase in power can actually stabilize or right the bike as it enters a deep low traction turn, or when riding in loose terrain like sand. Basically, if you’re doing a burnout, the bike will be attempting to right itself. This is a force that wouldn’t be at play while turning a MTB, since the wheels are so much lighter and the ability to increase the power is so moderate.
A note on coming from street riding:
As a ‘reformed’ street rider, I spent many years avoiding losing traction, especially in turns. It is a total paradigm shift to break traction intentionally and it feel utterly wrong at first. It may take longer to get comfortable with this technique if you have a street riding background since your whole nervous system will resist and your body may tend to stiffen and panic. I’ve seen people with no riding experience at all learn gravel cornering much more quickly than people with “tons of riding experience.” So be patient with yourself, start small, practice often.
. There’s the line you wanted, and the line you’ve got. Regardless, commit, push through it and don’t stop. Because if a suddenly stopped big bike is just a little bit out of balance, it’s going over and all you can do is get out of the way. Then you’ll smoke yourself picking up your 450lb bike in gnarly terrain.
