[clintalmighty]

Originally Posted by gfloyd2002

After you ride a bit you go by feel. Your foot just sort of knows where you need to be. You'll stop looking at the tach for up and downshifts, and you feel (or hear) where you should be. I never know what gear I'm in - I don't count. You just know that the bike is revving right and has power, with the very occassional tach glance to confirm what you're feeling. It is tempting to think of it like a math question, but it's more like an essay.

That said, if you want the math on it, it will depend on how tight the corner is and how fast you want to go. I'm assuming cornering RPMs in the 5000-7000 range, which is fairly low/conservative.
40MPH: 4th gear (Assuming a stock 14/45 gearing, if you are pulling 6500 RPMs in the corner, 4th gear will allow you to travel around 40MPH.)
30-35MPH: 3rd gear (14/45, 6500 RPMs, 3rd gear will be about 35mph. At 5500RPM, you'll be going 30.)
15 -30MPH: 2nd gear (At 14/45, 6000RPMs is 25MPH, varies from 20 to 30 in 5-7k range). Honestly, I let the revs drop in 2nd and make all but the slowest corners in 2nd -- 1st gear is pretty useless in 14/45 setup.

But if you are cornering while counting up and down shifts, calculating RPMs and MPH, you probably aren't looking through the turn, countersteering, etc. Go on feel instead. Until you develop the feel, err on the side of being in too high a gear (too low a gear could cause your rear wheel to lose traction.) Just downshift once, and if you need more ooomph, downshift again. Pretty safe to click down a couple of gears if you are crusing in 6th before you step down one at a time to find the right gear. Start early before the corner so you've got the right speed in advance and aren't stealing cornering traction with engine braking (which takes away rear wheel traction.) Pretty soon, your foot will know what to do without thinking about it.

Wow, thanks for taking the time to give your input.
I plan on going out and practicing all this tomorrow, providing it's not too cold out