Appetite for Instruction: The French Cornering Drill

By Gene Hamilton

Are you an aggressive rider? If yes, then you are probably entering corners too fast, losing a bit of control and exiting slowly. When I first got my pro license, I was the fastest racer into every corner. Unfortunately, I wasn’t the fastest out of those corners. Control and exit speed are your goals when cornering, and coming in too fast will always compromise control and slow your exit speed.

Why is exit speed your goal?

Momentum! What is after that corner? A long straightaway? A short uphill? If you carry more speed than me out of the corner, you will go faster up that short uphill or down that straight, using less energy than me. This makes you faster and more efficient, and really adds up over the entire trail.

Why does entering a corner too fast kill your exit speed and give you less control?

The list of reasons is long but these are three of the biggest ones:
1. Traction: Your tires have a limited amount of traction. Braking to slow down and changing direction both require a big percentage of the traction available to you. Braking to slow down in the corner will overload the tires’ ability to maintain traction, causing them to slide.

2. Panic: Trying to slow down in the corner causes a lot of stress; are you going to make it? This makes you tense up and spikes your heart rate while giving you the feeling you are hauling tail on the edge of control. You need to be calm to ride your best.

3. A corner is a ramp: If you finish cutting speed before the corner, you will have a longer ramp to accelerate down than someone trying to slow down in the corner.

What I learned from Greg Minnaar

When working with Greg Minnaar, he said that he learned from the French to brake hard and brake early. This allows both his bike and his brain to resettle before the corner, calming him down by making the corner feel easier and giving him a bigger ramp to accelerate down.

How do you know the right entrance speed for each corner? You learn that, sometimes, you have to go slow to go fast. Here is a great drill to help you learn exactly what speed to enter a corner. I call it the “French cornering drill.”

The French cornering drill

Find a corner that has an exit that goes uphill. Enter the corner at what you feel is the correct speed to give you the most exit speed. Coast out of the corner and draw a line where you stopped coasting.

Now, enter the corner quite a bit slower, coast out of the corner and draw a line where you stopped. If you went further, you had more exit speed. If you come up short, you had less exit speed.

Keep experimenting until you coast the furthest. That will be the best entrance speed for that corner. For me, it was about 20-percent slower than what I thought was the correct pace.

Now, find another, different type of corner: steeper, less banked, off-camber, etc. After some practice, you will have a good idea of the correct entrance speed for each type of corner at your skill level.

Why are you still here? Go out and do the French cornering drill!

Editor’s note: Gene Hamilton has spent 35 years mastering his coaching skills to effectively coach you. He has worked with the best rider in the world Greg Minnaar, personally coached multiple World and National Champions, and over 3,000 riders from ages 11 to 78.

Through his drill-based coaching approach and keen observation, Gene will set you on the path to mastering optimal, efficient, and balanced techniques. Discover more through the free Skills Article and Tips available on www.betterride.net and connect with Gene on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.

If you liked this and want to become a better rider, be sure to check out the rest of our Appetite for Instruction series here: https://mbaction.com/appetite-for-instruction/