MSF. . . For Everyone With No Previous Experience on Bikes

[flynrider]

I disagree. I really don't see the comparison between driving stick and riding a bike. I think what really helped me was the instructors advice about counting "Mississippi's" until you feel the friction zone. Once I had a feeling for the friction zone everything felt natural.

Having driven a stick before I started riding, I was already comfortable with the concepts involved in a manual transmission (i.e. friction zone, power management). When I started riding I just had to transfer my left foot skills to my left hand. It was a no brainer.

[dieziege]

To me, working the clutch on a car is muscle feel. It is something I do without thinking and I'm usually good enough about rev matching that I can drop the clutch (as in yank my foot away as fast as it'll move) without jerking the car around. Apart from starting off from a stop the clutch is a binary control and the finesse is all in matching revolutions. I've put over 170,000 miles on a single clutch and that has plenty of life left in it so I'm not an abusive clutch-jerker either.

I don't see a huge connection between auto and motorcycle clutch work. It seems like on a cycle you slip things a lot more, and you've got to deal with taking up the play in the drive system constantly. Yeah, slipping the clutch is the same idea, but if you drove a car the way it seems a motorcycle clutch must be used you'd burn out the clutch every 30,000 miles.