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Gummiente wrote:This is TMW. There is no such thing as a stupid question here.

And this is exactly why I visit this forum. I may not post lots, but I sure read lots.

Mistercory wrote:shift?
what's that?
I guess I should be shifting before I "blip" the throttle?

Shift while the clutch is in and you are blipping the throttle. If you practice this often, it will become second nature.

Blipping the throttle does help a lot with smoothness. Get good at it, if just to learn your bike that much better. Remember, how you do it (number of revs, how lo9ng, etc) changes from bike to bike. I personally got into the habbit of doing it early in my ridding career just for the sake of being smooth. Never had a passenger complain about jerkiness for it either.

Gummiente wrote:Mistercory, your question has already been answered by other members but I would like to add something anyway...

This is TMW. There is no such thing as a stupid question here.

Okkkay......What is the flying velocity of an unladen swallow?

ceemes wrote:

Gummiente wrote:Mistercory, your question has already been answered by other members but I would like to add something anyway...

This is TMW. There is no such thing as a stupid question here.

Okkkay......What is the flying velocity of an unladen swallow?

European or African swallow?

...in order to maintain air-speed velocity, a swallow needs to beat its wings forty-three times every second.

(Without the coconuts...)

Wot's the penguin doing on the telly?

- Well of course it was nailed there. Otherwise it would muscle up to those bars and voom.

- Look matey, this parrot wouldn't go voom if I put four thousand volts through it. It's bleeding demised.

- It's not. It's pining.

- It's not pining, it's passed on. This parrot is no more. It has ceased to be. It's expired and gone to meet its maker. This is a late parrot. It's a stiff. Bereft of life, it rests in peace. If you hadn't nailed it to the perch, it would be pushing up the daisies. It's run down the curtain and joined the choir invisible. This is an ex-parrot.

At the risk of hijacking this thread back on track, what's the difference between engine braking prior to stopping or going into a turn and blipping? I'm not rolling on the throttle, just feathering the clutch on the way out. Is this a lazier way of doing it? Am I forming a bad habit?

Tex

Texfire, I've read your post three times and I'm not sure what you're asking.

Are you asking is it OK not to blip when downshifting through a curve? Sure, absolutely OK. Blipping is a technique I associate with high performance, sport riding -- getting through a curve as fast as possible, where efficiency counts. Everyday street riding, sure, just ease the clutch out in the lower gear.

A lot depends on the kind of bike you're riding, spacing of the gear ratios, amount of engine braking your engine provides, where you are in the RPM range, especially relative to the torque curve, etc, etc. There are often debates on TMW about the "right" way to brake, downshift, corner, etc, etc, but it's often not recognized that there only principles, not absolute "right" universal answers. Motorcycles vary too much.