Total Motorcycle Community Forums

I am very comfortable downshifting and have always learned and practiced bringing the bike back down to 1st before stopping at traffic lights. However, riding in New York City, with traffic lights EVERYWHERE, many of which are not synchronized, I often get going for a good mile, then have to abruptly stop at the changing traffic light a hundred feet ahead of me. With this happening quite often already, I'm beginning to worry about me having to stop quickly while at higher speeds. If I can worry about one less thing, like downshifting to 1st, during an evasive situation, I can concentrate on my swerving and checking for other vehicles surrounding me. So my question is:

Is it necessary to downshift all the way to 1st as you come to a complete stop or is it possible to make a complete stop while say still in 4th gear from 45 mph?
If possible, is it recommended to regularly do this or is that only to be utilized in necessary situations?

I've begun taking my bike on the highway. For whatever reason (probably because all the cars are flying past me) I feel a need to be in top gear while cruising. However, I am in no means trying to go beyond my limits and have yet to hit even 60mph.

My question is, if I'm in the 55mph range should I be in 6th gear or should I be staying in 4th or 5th perhaps. I'm curious because my bike can go MUCH faster (which I am in NO RUSH to try) so I'm curious as to what are the speed ranges for each gear. If I (theoretically) can do 150mph, I'm assuming in 6th gear, it seems a bit odd to be in the same gear doing 50mph.

Can you offer some advice/info on what speeds I should be traveling in the different gears.

During a panic stop, concentrate on braking and collision avoidance, don't worry about getting down to 1st. If you find yourself at a stop in a higher gear, you can always rake through the gears and get down to 1st, though you'll probably have to "walk" the bike backwards or forwards in order to make the gears mesh.

As far as cruising the freeway, I sometimes roll along in a lower gear (like 4th instead of 5th) if I want to leave myself some readily-available engine braking and acceleration, such as during a heavy traffic situation when anything can (and usually does) happen. Just be mindful of the redline and leave plenty of headroom on the tach.

Thanks ZooTech. Useful information and most importantly, it makes sense. I'll keep that in mind and head out to practice some of that.

If the bike in your avatar is the bike you ride (looks like a CBR 600 RR, or an older F4i) then you should be able to do 55 in 1st or 2nd gear pretty easily without touching redline. At 55mph in 6th gear I'd think that your revs would be really really low...

kabob983 wrote:If the bike in your avatar is the bike you ride (looks like a CBR 600 RR, or an older F4i) then you should be able to do 55 in 1st or 2nd gear pretty easily without touching redline.

My bike's an '02 F4i. So I should be sticking to the lower gears then even on the highway. Speed limits around me are usually 45-55mph. Should I not be exceeding say 3rd gear then if I was to ride within the limits?

Bx RedBull wrote:My bike's an '02 F4i. So I should be sticking to the lower gears then even on the highway. Speed limits around me are usually 45-55mph. Should I not be exceeding say 3rd gear then if I was to ride within the limits?

Only if, as I mentioned earlier, you anticipate variations in the flow of traffic. It's perfectly fine to be in 6th @ 55mph if you've reached your cruising speed and traffic flow is consistant.

After a while you won't have to worry about downshifting to 1st... you will just do it automatically, so you will be able to avoid collisions etc and still downshift if you need to... in an emergency, just hold in the clutch and STOP... you don't have to worry about shifting.

If you took the MSF they taught you to squeeze in the breaks and downshift all at the same time as fast as possible, then the instructor probably checked your shift lever to make sure you actually downshifted.

When I'm in traffic I tent to use the upper end of my RPM's, which is the lower gear for the speed. I do this for two reasons. Number one, it makes it easier for me to use my engine as part of my braking. Number two, on my bike I get better performance higher in the RPM range, so I can take off quickly riding this way. The only time I shift up into my upper gears is on the highway or a country road where I know I will not be changing out a lot. I downshift one gear at a time as I approach an intersection, and rarely would I need to row through gears accordingly. The downside to my techinque is my gas is used more quickly, since I'm always using more fuel to spin more RPMs for the same speed I could have used a bigger gear.

Just practise emergency braking while tapping your toe as fast as possible. I do that automatically now when I need to stop quick. I don't even think about it.

ZooTech wrote:If you find yourself at a stop in a higher gear, you can always rake through the gears and get down to 1st, though you'll probably have to "walk" the bike backwards or forwards in order to make the gears mesh.

What Zoo said, and whatever works on your bike. My Bonneville gets very cranky if I try to put it in 1st after it is stopped, but YMMV.