Straight out: I consider the general motorcycle rider education- at least in California, nothing else as a joke. Though, my guess is that the situation isn’t much better in other states. First of- my knowledge comes from teaching thousands of students on the track and street- asking pretty much each of them from who- and where they learned from. I’ll give you some ‘pictures’ according to what I’ve seen where their level at:
There was a 17 year old new rider in one of me ‘Cornering School Day‘ classes and he was taught by “the” certified institution for motorcycle drivers licenses what ‘Trail Braking’ is. Quote: “...it’s applying the rear brake by being on the throttle while entering a turn“. I have no name for that kind of “made-up”- but theories…
- No clue theory: “The” certified institution has no idea what Trail Braking actually is, and just made this up… or
- No resources theory: They actually know why the best riders on this planet are doing it- but can’t teach it… or
- Marketing theory (my favorite): They figured that the Trail Braking process involves front brake usage while entering a turn is actually a conflict to their certified curriculum- to stay away from the front brake doing any leaning. The goal… in order to “sell” to the people that they do “teach” Trail Braking, and to have an effective Google key word driving traffic to their website… they just made their version of Trail Braking up
There was that 65 years old Lady who reached retirement and bought a brand new motorcycle to finally live her dream. She called me to teach her to