View Full Version : down shifting in general?


Mr.E
July 29th, 2011, 09:28 PM
Hey everyone.
So in about a month my bike will be fully paid off and coming home. I took the msf, got my license endorsed, and done all the research I feel I possibly could for the time being. But one thing still worries me. As I read more and more I've come to think this: up shifting can be done at really any rmp. Most people seem to like to up shift within the. 7k to 10k. Range.

As for down shifting though, its a bit more complicated. They didn't teach much about WHEN to down shift, just more so how. So here are a few questions I'd like to know the answers to before I get my bike.

I understand blipping the throttle and how you want the rpms to be higher when you down shift because if your too low when you let the clutch out and the usual rpm for that speed is much higher you could lock up the back wheel.

But how do you know at what rpms you should be at and when its safe to down shift (without blipping.)?

Did you learn to shift down by studying what the rpms in every gear is for every possible speed in that gear? (Hopefully that question makes sense.)

What's is the easiest way to learn correct down shifting?

The whole matching engine speed to street speed doesn't completely make sense to me. Does this mean if I'm doing 50 mph, I should be around 5 k rpm? (Which from what I read is not true.)

Answers are greatly apprecated. Sorry for such noob questions. Just the whole down shifting stuff is the main thing that doesn't make too much sense to me. I can see me easly locking up my rear wheel because of the lack of knowledge. Also sorry for any typos, doing this on my phone at work. Lol

Alex
July 29th, 2011, 09:37 PM
You can downshift at any speed that won't have the engine past the redline in the next lower gear. Which means the only time one has an issue is if they are already up near redline, and accidently downshift instead of upshift. Otherwise, no real issue.

The engine speeds that you choose to downshift at depend on what you are doing. If you're accelerating hard and realize you're only at 8k, one might downshift right then to take the revs up to 10 - 11k and more immediately acceleration. But if you're just slowing down as you come up to a light, sometimes it makes sense to let the revs get all the way down to 2k or even less before you downshift one ore more gears. It'll come naturally to you sooner than you think. Key points - smooth on the clutch, never let it out too fast no matter what you're doing, and it helps smooth things out. And never downshift when you're already at redline in the current gear.

YORCHI
July 29th, 2011, 10:16 PM
Do you know how to drive a manual car? If so, it's similar to that and you will learn what RPM's work with every gear as you get along. If you aren't very familiar with that then make sure you take the time to ride your bike and familiarize yourself with it and you'll start to feel and memorize where the RPM's are in the gears and the speed you're going at. Make sure you pay attention and don't try to down shift more than one gear at a time unless you are sure you know what you're doing. It can be easy to think it didn't go down a gear and then do it again or again and get caught off guard when the clutch gets released. A way to avoid all of that is to downshift one and then slowly release the clutch and see what the engine does. If you're already going pretty fast and then downshift the engine could kick out really high so you have to be ready for it.

Another thing is to know when you're in too high a gear for how slow you are going. When I was coming home and was approaching a red light I would start to downshift all the way to first and keep the clutch held in until I stopped. There were a few times when I would start to slow down and then the light would turn to green so I would have to look at my speed and then upshift to find a matching gear. In a case like where you might not know which gear you should be in, remind yourself to release the clutch slowly and watch where the rpm's go to...it's best to be in a lower gear and control the bike with the throttle then to go into too high a gear and then lose control of the bike when you give it gas and it doesn't go anywhere.

jamesio
July 29th, 2011, 10:30 PM
Have you read through this thread yet? Lots of info in here

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79401

Mr.E
July 29th, 2011, 10:39 PM
Thanks for the info alex, that makes me less nervous. I always thought it was more of a ok you must down shift at these spcific rpms and not any lower or higher kind of thing. But that cleared it up.

Jorge, what do you mean the engine will kick out and I should be ready? You mean kind of like what alex said? If I'm going fast and down shift while I'm already close to redline the engine will lock the wheels/jolt? Or am I way off? Lol. Thanks

Mr.E
July 29th, 2011, 10:45 PM
Have you read through this thread yet? Lots of info in here

http://www.ninjette.org/forums/showthread.php?t=79401

I read it a little but it was more about blipping and what not. Where as what I was wondering exactly what rpms (which seems to be any as long as I'm not near redline) for the most part. Thanks though. I think that thread will help a lot once I got the main down shift down.

setasai
July 30th, 2011, 02:31 AM
Like alex says, it's really about feel. Sometimes I downshift at 9k and sometimes at 5k and sometimes almost to the point of stalling. Dont sweat the small stuff. Riding gets easier with practice and with practice, you'll come to understand your bike and where the engine "likes" to be at.

For example, I like to be at 6k when i'm putting around town. It's quiet and still has enough power to keep from stalling. Then when I get to an onramp, i'll downshift right away and gun it so I can get some speed and then shift back up. After some practice, you wont even worry about rpms, you'll just know what to do and when to do it based on the situation.

ally99
July 30th, 2011, 03:52 AM
The only time it's usually an issue on our bikes is: a) if you downshift 2 gears without realizing it b) if you think you're in, say 3rd and want to DS into 2nd, but you were actually in 2nd and (oops), downshift into 1st. When I was learning, I'd count the gears in my head and keep up with which one I was in at all times. Eventually you stop having to do that and you just know what feels right and what the bike needs.

Just be very confident on the shifter when you downshift and make sure it goes down when you try to downshift. If you're not sure if it did or not, it's best to let out the clutch then and see where you are in the RPMs as opposed to downshifting again.

In regular downshifting when you know which gear you are in, you shouldn't have a problem whatsoever.

YORCHI
July 30th, 2011, 08:36 AM
Thanks for the info alex, that makes me less nervous. I always thought it was more of a ok you must down shift at these spcific rpms and not any lower or higher kind of thing. But that cleared it up.

Jorge, what do you mean the engine will kick out and I should be ready? You mean kind of like what alex said? If I'm going fast and down shift while I'm already close to redline the engine will lock the wheels/jolt? Or am I way off? Lol. Thanks
yeah, what he said. The RPM's will skyrocket and the rear tire can get a little squirly on you. Imagine you're already going as fast as 4th gear can go in bike speed and RPM speed and you accidentally down shift to 3rd which will pretty much be like your engine braking so what's gonna happen to the bike?

Mr.E
July 31st, 2011, 05:56 AM
^^ Skid for the win? Lol.

Thanks for the advice guys. Make me feel a bit easier about when I get my bike and learn down shifting. Here's something I have shifting wise in general now....

I hear always dont let the clutch out too fast, and in my MSF i made sure to let it out slowly because I didnt want to stall. But, in a video I watched by a vlogger he seems to let it out pretty fast. Is it not easy to really "dump" the clutch on a bike as I thought it was?

6bSTD-wp2nQ If you watch its a pretty quick release. So should I not worry so much about shifting too fast in general either? As long as I just slow it down a little instead of just letting it go all together? (I know this is something I'll learn once I get the bike, but its always a plus to know as much info ahead of time) lol. Thanks. I appreciate the replys.

YORCHI
July 31st, 2011, 10:43 AM
You can dump the clutch on this bike as long as you're going at a reasonable speed for the next gear. I don't think it has the torque to cause you any harm. I can imagine dumping it on a liter bike and just watching the bike ride away while you're standing still lol

Also, I wouldn't say you HAVE to release it slowly, but CAREFULLY instead. You can release it faster than you did at the MSF course as long as you're paying attention to everything else that's going on.

Timon
July 31st, 2011, 03:19 PM
As others have mentioned it's all about feel. The general idea to downshifting can really only fall into two categories.

1) You are slowing in one way or another (i.e. just using engine braking, or slowing to eventually come to a stop). 2) You want/need more acceleration (this is pretty common to throw into #1 when you downshift to slow before a corner and to speed through it).

As was mentioned you can technically downshift at anything that is not going to throw your RPMs higher than your red line. I've noticed on my Ninja this is harder to do than you might think unless you're literally sitting on your rev limit.

The way I look at it is at a given speed, each gear changes the RPMs by a certain amount. For example purposes let's say 1st gear at 30 mph is 8k RPMs. Now let's say you go into 2nd gear and your RPMs at 30 mph are down to 6.5k. You up shift again into 3rd gear and you're down to a mere 4k rpms at the same 30 mphs. This means at a given speed 1st to second gear had a 1.5k RPM difference and 2nd to 3rd gear had a 2.5k RPM difference.

In this example if you're doing 30 mph in 3rd gear and you want to downshift into 2nd gear then your engine speed needs to raise by 2.5k RPMs. You have three options, fully depending on your riding style, to match the physical speed of the bike to the rotating speed of the engine. The closer you can get to this, the smoother your downshifts will be (almost to the point you may not even notice the shift at all). You can: 1) Slip the clutch to allow the engine to slowly change speeds. 2) Blip the throttle to best match the speed. 3 - Not recommended by me) Drop the clutch and let physics take it's course.

Hopefully you're still following me on this. Now I'm going to explain the three routes.

1) Slipping the clutch. This is a good technique for beginners to a standard transmission, it's essentially a crutch to fall onto. When in doubt (i.e. stalling the engine), pull the clutch. In terms of wear and tear on your vehicle this isn't the best route unless you like doing a clutch job more often. Also it isn't exactly the fastest route as you have to be pretty fancy with your clutch release, as others have mentioned be "careful" with it.

2) Blip the throttle. I know you were wondering how to achieve downshifting without this, but trust me when you get more experienced it is a much better technique to know about. Blipping the throttle is the smoothest way to transition from a higher gear to a lower one since you have full control over the engine speed. It isn't always the easiest, as it takes sometime to get use to the feel for the bike and where the engine needs to be to where the bike is at (engine speed vs physical speed). It also allows you to simply drop the clutch without the consequences of the 3rd option, which I'll get into. It's pretty much the fastest and smoothest option to go with.

3) Drop the clutch. This is not recommended as others have mentioned locking the back tire and losing traction. The reasoning behind this is engine braking, which simply uses the drive train friction to slow the vehicle. If you're going to fast or downshift too much (i.e. 4th to 2nd without realizing it) it can cause the back tire to lose traction due to the sudden slowing, just like if you slammed on the rear brake by itself. In the event this should happen, the fastest way to fix it is to use your clutch to free the wheel from the drive train, allowing it to spin freely and regain traction.

In correspondence with our example, let's say you're downshifting from 3rd to 2nd. 1) You would pull in the clutch lever, downshift, and slowly release the clutch lever as the RPMs jump from 4k to 6.5k and then decrease from there as you slowly release the clutch lever, keep in mind depending on how slow you are at releasing the clutch, with no throttle input the RPMs will just continue to drop during this process. 2) You would pull the clutch lever, downshift, raise the RPMs from 4k to 6.5k and release the clutch while maintaining or even increasing throttle once the clutch lever is full released. 3) You would pull in the clutch lever, downshift, and release the clutch lever. Beware of the bike bucking when you do this and the potential for the rear tire to lock.

You can practice the varying speeds vs RPMs, though obviously they're always going to change depending on other variables (wind, incline, weight, etc.). It will still give you a good idea of where you'll need to shoot for in terms of engine speed vs physical speed. In most cases if I'm not sure where the RPMs need to be exactly, I'll combine techniques 1 and 2. I usually do this by pulling in the clutch lever, maintaining my current amount of throttle input and then slightly increasing the throttle input as I semi-slowly release the clutch lever.

Maybe this was a bit of a long winded answer, but hopefully it gives you a little bit more insight into downshifting and how it works. Most of my downshifting I actually acquired from my cars as opposed to my bike, but the same principles apply to both.

ally99
July 31st, 2011, 03:48 PM
Maybe this was a bit of a long winded answer, but hopefully it gives you a little bit more insight into downshifting and how it works.


I thought it was a GREAT answer! Very informative! :clap2:

jamesio
July 31st, 2011, 05:46 PM
I hear always dont let the clutch out too fast, and in my MSF i made sure to let it out slowly because I didnt want to stall. But, in a video I watched by a vlogger he seems to let it out pretty fast. Is it not easy to really "dump" the clutch on a bike as I thought it was?

6bSTD-wp2nQ If you watch its a pretty quick release. So should I not worry so much about shifting too fast in general either? As long as I just slow it down a little instead of just letting it go all together? (I know this is something I'll learn once I get the bike, but its always a plus to know as much info ahead of time) lol. Thanks. I appreciate the replys.

I wouldn't worry about shifting too fast at first. I realized that when I first started riding when shifting, I would pull the clutch lever all the way in, then release it slowly. This takes a lot of concentration. Pulling the clutch all the way in, upshifting and dumping the clutch will be very unpleasant. Once you get better and learn where your friction zone is you will be able to pull the lever in just between the friction zone, up shift real fast and let it out smooth, but quickly. When you get better you will be able to bust out some upshifts nice and quick :) The same thing can be applied to downshifting as well, it's just more complicated because you have to worry more about matching rpm's, this is where blipping comes in.

Mr.E
August 2nd, 2011, 02:23 AM
That was really helpful Timon. I'll be practicing those when I get my bike.

Thanks for all the answers guys. I'm sure they all will help alot and I'll be refering back to this sometimes lol.

GeorgiaHooligan
August 3rd, 2011, 02:12 PM
Find a large parking lot when you get your bike Mr.E. and practice shifting until you have full control before going on public roads.

Mr.E
August 3rd, 2011, 09:02 PM
Find a large parking lot when you get your bike Mr.E. and practice shifting until you have full control before going on public roads.

I just find that hard to do because I have to take public roads to get to a parking lot -_- lol