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What is Engine Braking?
Engine braking is making use of the engine compression and internal friction to slow down the bike. In a four-stroke engine, the combustion happens once in every 2 revolution so when the fuel is cut off, intake, combustion and exhaust consume more energy than is produced. This slows down the engine which then slows down the rear wheel of the bike and in turn helps in braking.
If you don't know much about the cycles of a 4-stroke engine, you can watch this video. It explains in detail the working of a 4-stroke engine:
Engine braking happens every time you let go of the throttle but it is not very effective to slow down the bike. However with a few techniques, you could make good use of engine braking to slow down the bike apart from using brakes.
How to make use of engine braking?
Whilst riding, if you want to slow down suddenly, you could make use of the extra braking power the engine braking gives. All you have to do is shut the throttle off and keep the clutch engaged. (Do not press the clutch lever).
If you want to slow down quicker, you could disengage the clutch, downshift a gear and then engage the clutch again. Similarly, you can keep gearing down until you reach gear 1 to slow down the motorcycle.
However, there is a problem of getting jerks while doing this process and hence it requires another technique to be applied while doing the gear down. It is called as "Rev-Matching"
Revv-Matching:
This is one of the coolest things you can do on a motorcycle. When you downshift, you blip the throttle slightly to get the engine to a higher rpm so that when the gear is shifted from a higher one to a lower one, the engine speed matches.
It's pretty hard to make one understand how to exactly do it by just using words so I'll share this video with you:
Skip to 3:20 to see how it is done.
There's an alternate way to do it by slipping the clutch a bit so that there is no jerks. You slip the clutch by engaging it slowly after shifting a gear down.
Should you use engine braking?
Yes, you definitely should. Best method for braking is traditional braking along with engine braking. You should apply a pressure of 70% on the front brake lever and 30% on the rear. I'll come to it in another article. Apart from increasing the effectiveness of braking, rev-matching also sounds cool and is pretty fun.
Does it harm the engine?
Not really as long as you don't take it to extreme RPMs every time . The only disadvantage would be that you might end up sliding the rear of your bike sometimes. But if you know how to control the slide then you're cool. Also, if you don't use traditional brake and only use engine braking to slow down, there are chances that the vehicles behind you may not notice you braking and may end in a collision. So, it's always preferable to use both traditional and engine to slow down your bike.