Badge Kids › Road Badge › Section 3 › Lesson 3.6

Ages 11-16 · Road Badge · Section 3

The squeeze, and the corner

Brake progressively with both brakes from a rolling speed and stop straight, and take a corner as slow, look, lean, roll with the outside pedal down.

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Step 1 of 10

1Watch

The last three feet of a corner

Film

The last three feet of a corner

A rider takes a chalk corner in an empty lot, squeezes a brake while still leaning, and the back wheel steps out sideways; the frame freezes with the machine crossed up and both wheels still down.

16 seconds

That was not a hard corner and it was not fast. One squeeze in the wrong two seconds and the machine did something the rider never asked it for.

2The idea

How a squeeze is meant to feel

The motorcycle manual is blunt about it: do not be shy about the front brake, but do not grab it either. Squeeze the lever firmly and progressively. One mechanics writer describes the action as squeezing a lemon, which is a better instruction than most of the technical ones.

Progressive means the pressure arrives across about a second rather than all at once. A grab is not a stronger stop. It is a shorter one that ends in a skid or a lifted wheel, and on a machine carrying a battery and a motor there is more weight behind whatever happens next.

3The idea

What your body does while the machine stops

The taught position has four parts.
Pedals level, at three and nine.
Weight just off the saddle.
Hips back, behind the saddle if you can get there.
Elbows bent, arms braced against the deceleration.

The last one is the interesting one. The theory the cycling engineers put forward is that going over the bars is usually caused not by braking too hard, but by braking hard without bracing your arms against it. The fix is where your body is, not less brake.

4The idea

And then the rule with no exceptions in it

Three sources give this three different strengths. The motorcycle manual says straighten up first and then brake, and allows light braking mid-lean while you trade lean angle for brake pressure. The two cycling sources say do not touch the brakes while leaning at all, because the back wheel lifts and slides out.

We are teaching the strict version: straighten, then brake. It has no failure mode, and the softer version is a refinement for riders with a licence and years behind them. A tyre only has so much grip, and cornering is already spending some of it.

5Decide

You are already leaning into a corner and it is tighter than you read it.

Yes, and it is two moves instead of one. Straighten, brake, then turn in again at a speed the corner can take. It costs you a bit of the corner and it never costs you the machine, and it is the only version of this that also works on a wet or loose surface.

Both of those spend grip you have not got. A tyre has one budget and the lean is already using part of it, so braking mid-lean asks for more than is there and the back end goes. Leaning further does the same thing, and adds the inside pedal to the list of things that can touch the ground.

Pick one to carry on.

6Look

Slow, look, lean, roll

Four photographs of the same corner in sequence: the rider upright and slowing before the turn, the head turned to look through it, the machine leaned with the outside pedal pushed down, and the machine standing up again on the way out. — Four frames of one corner

That is the motorcycle manual’s four-step corner, and the first two of the four both happen before the machine has turned at all.

7The idea

The four steps, and the pedal

Slow — get the speed off before the turn, not in it.
Look — look through the turn to where you want to go, not at the kerb.
Lean — let the machine lean under you.
Roll — pick the drive back up as it stands itself up on the way out.

And one step the motorcycle version does not need. Stop pedalling once you start to lean, push the outside pedal down, and keep it there. A pedal at the bottom of its stroke on the inside of a lean can touch the ground, and a pedal that touches the ground lifts a wheel off it.

8Find them

Which of these are true about braking and turning?

Tap the ones that count.

Find all 4.

9Say it

The one you will need mid-corner

Say it out loud, in your normal voice

“Straighten, then brake.”

Three words, and they run against what your hands want to do the moment a corner tightens up. Say them on every practice corner until the order stops being a decision.

10Do it

Before you leave this page

Two things, both watched. Ride at a steady speed towards a chalk line and stop with both brakes, squeezing across about a second, staying straight and upright – five times, ticked only if the machine neither skidded nor slewed. Then ride a chalk corner five times with the outside pedal down and no braking at all once you are leaning.

Tick it when you have done it.

Lesson done.

Squeeze, never grab. Straighten first, then brake. Never brake mid-lean.

Take the Section check

Section 3 · In the Empty Lot

3.1Somewhere with no cars in it 3.2Setting off from a standstill 3.3The stop, and the pedal you leave behind 3.4Riding a straight line, which is harder than it sounds 3.5Slow control: the weave and the box 3.6The squeeze, and the corner ★Section check

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