Trail Braking Derangement Syndrome

Heard of trail braking long ago, but can't remember if I tried it. Anyway, I generally avoid touching the rear brake at highish speeds when I have a good front brake. Lighter flywheels and higher compression provide good engine braking, which does something similar to lightly using the rear brake. I think some people believe it works the other way around, but a heavy flywheel and its associated inertia combined with low compression is going to want to keep spinning when off throttle. Then again maybe I'm the only one that has experienced that engine braking difference, and my riding style could be different, but nothing special. I do front brake into turns kind of deep, but I'm generally smooth, so it's not that hard to hold a line on a light weight old Norton. I did not watch the video.

My brake light switch is on the Magura front brake lever perch.

I started to watch it but his corners and bends were pretty smooth, long and can handle high speeds, as well his bike handles pretty good, have ABS braking and all the gismos related to modern bikes, our old Norton's don't have all that stuff but most do upgrade the suspension and brakes system on our old bikes to handle a lot better with other upgrades, but come over where my mates and I ride up in the ranges, with tight corners, short straights, big drop offs the side and lots of bush/trees if you did lose it as well big down and up hills to travers, you need different skills to ride our range roads at speed, different conditions means different style of riding and most of our ranges getting up to 115 mph you be dead.
Braking in corners no way where I ride and using your own skills for our tight twisties is more important and having your bike set up right for those tight twisties, learn how to slow your bike down without using brakes for the next corners as well using the torque of your motor to get you through them tight twisties, but then my hot 850 Featherbed is built for the tight twisties, its light, has great front brakes but as I say I never use or touch them while riding our mountain ranges, but if I did use them it's because I have too much speed before the next tight corner, but no I been riding our great mountain ranges all my riding life and all on my Norton and Triumphs I have owned and most of my mates ride sports bikes and good skills, never see any brake lights when we are all riding these roads and we do push our bikes to their limits, we ride hard and fast and we know each other's skills.

Fast Eddie said:

That video clarifies a lot.

IMO that’s some good fast riding.

But the corners are not as sharp, and the braking is not as hard, as I thought we were referring to.

I thought we were talking about bikes with the forks compressed and the front tyre loaded, with the front brake on hard, whilst the rider had their knee down, kinda stuff !

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That’s not the best video to back up my claim that there is such a thing as “trail braking derangement syndrome” because, as you say, it's really just an example of good, fast riding. Its three years old but I only just came across it and it’s the best I’ve seen as far as illustrating what road based trail braking might look like. To call it trail braking is fair enough since he’s applying the brakes while the bike is leaned and he’s easing off as the lean angle increases.

The derangement comes from other YouTube channels that want you to cover the brakes and even apply a slight amount of brake pressure (essentially dragging the brakes) through all turns, all the time. I believe this originates in Nick Ienatsch’s 2014 magazine article, “The Brake Light Initiative” (a follow-up to his original “The Pace” article) in which he writes, “Your challenge for your very next sporty ride or trackday: Every time you close the throttle because your brain says slow down, pick up just enough brake lever to light up your brake light. Force yourself to do it all day, even if you know you don't need the brakes for the upcoming corner or intersection.” Nick’s a respected figure in motorcycle circles in the US and many YouTube channels are echoing his take on trail braking.