gear changes, please offer your pearls of wisdom

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by yorkie_chris

rips tyres to buggery.

Explains my tyre inspections on the first couple of weeks of owning the SV!

[dizzyblonde]

Thing is Andy is a car driver first IIRC. The bike's pleasure, so not ridden as often as some of us lot. (If I'm barking up the wrong tree then forgive me) I've ridden with Andy on a few occasions, he stared at backside for 200 miles from the AR!. I can't see much wrong with his riding as a whole TBH, he just needs to get out more and be at one with his bike. I've ridden for five years, but still people pick holes in how I ride. I ride as safely and as smoothly as I can, I've upped a notch or two in standard in the last couple of months, but it changes all the time with me, i could be riding like a granny again next week, and shaking my head violently as I guff up everything.

Choose your advice from folk wisely Andy, and apply what you can understand and wish to carry out, ignore what you want to, most of all listen to yourself, hasn't done me any harm as yet.

I need to practice this 'blipping' malarkey! I don't do it at the moment and when riding normally I've never found it to be an issue. However, when riding in a 'spirited fashion', I have noticed myself getting the back end a bit twitcy on some down changes.

[ophic]

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

Choose your advice from folk wisely Andy, and apply what you can understand and wish to carry out, ignore what you want to, most of all listen to yourself, hasn't done me any harm as yet.

But if you end up mostly naked on the back of a winged horse with a mahoosive horn (the horse, i mean) - take it from me, its gone badly wrong

[Dave20046]

Originally Posted by dizzyblonde

he stared at backside for 200 miles from the AR!.

Is that really to do with his biking though?

Originally Posted by madness

I need to practice this 'blipping' malarkey! I don't do it at the moment and when riding normally I've never found it to be an issue. However, when riding in a 'spirited fashion', I have noticed myself getting the back end a bit twitcy on some down changes.

I pretty much blip on all down changes and double declutch in the car : someone please correct me if I'm wrong! But I've believed this to be less strenuous on engines? And there's an obvious benefit when on the bike of just general smoothness (not that I'm the smoothest)

[yorkie_chris]

Smooth is good.

If you don't blip (at high rpm, tickover revs doesn't make much odds) then you get a smack in the gearbox because you haven't blipped it to unload the pressure on the gear dogs, not good, not a huge amount of wear, but better to blip and unload them.

Then, when you let clutch out with revs mismatched, you get a rapid rise in the engine rpm and either a slide, or a lurch. This is all tension on chain and whole drivetrain. I doubt the engine itself gives a damn, but it is a knock going through the whole system. Gear dogs and meshing gears far prefer a steady load to a smack.

I blip on downshifts if the revs are going to be sufficiently high enough that with no blipping, things get snakey. Under 4000 rpm (tooown riding) it dosnt make much of a differance, and I just ease the clutch out (not too slowly but more controlled).

You can also get away without pulling the clutch in fully; learn to "dip" the lever just past the point where the clutch is disengaged.Same with up-shifting. I learnt to do this pretty quick to stop maria nutting me in the back of the head

[dizzyblonde]

Originally Posted by ophic

But if you end up mostly naked on the back of a winged horse with a mahoosive horn (the horse, i mean) - take it from me, its gone badly wrong

well I always wear the correct biking gear on the back of his bike

Originally Posted by Dave20046

Is that really to do with his biking though?

hmmmm I see some sort of pattern forming here, thats why nobody likes overtaking me, its not that I'm riding too fast for them or indeed I'm so dangerous they daren't .....it Gladys the action man isn't it

Originally Posted by ophic

unfortunately impossible under braking with most cars due to the pedal set-up. Unless downshifting for power, then yes I blip.

Heel & Toe!

Cheers for all your comments guys.

Just to let you know im allways wanting to improve things. On my own on the bike (now bearing in mind ive only been riding a year) im quietly confident and have a nice comfort zone, as with anything new im wanting to make myself fully aware and ride to the best of my current abilities before taking the mrs on the back. Obviously if i wasnt happy about it or if she wasnt then we wouldnt be doing it and we wouldnt be having this conversation.

If im on my own then yea things just seem to happen and work well. its only when ou slow things down and analyse them that you realise how bad things are. If i can get it right then by understanding the whole process then in a situation where something untowards happened then i would be more fully prepaired. Just as a test think about your ride home tonight and each and every gear change. see how you might improve it and thats what im thinking about there are 99% of bikers out there that in my mind are better than me and 98% of car drivers. however reality is very different.

Ophic cheers for the advice about waiting for it to drop after the blip, that was the type of advice i was after really. Something to take note of for my ride home tonight

btw i can clutchless change on the bike, its a damn sight easier than on a car. And theres no need to double-de-clutch on a modern car gearbox dave, your just wasting time.


Cheers guys ill let you know how i get on.... although i am quite nervous