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Maximum Braking Effect


Jaybird180

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Ha. Hi C. We were posting at the same time... lol.

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... And, there are plenty of instances during normal street riding when downshifting doesn't include hard braking or riding in the powerband. I don't follow what you mean about bouncing off the rev limiter. MOST normal street riding doesn't happen near redline at all.

LOL, you def. don't want to ride in my part of town LOLOLOLOL

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Start at an easy speed, no need to go fast.

I was trying to learn it at slower speeds, but couldn't feel what was going on because of the low RPM's. I couldn't tell what was working, and what wasn't. 80 feels good because all the way down to 3rd I can feel a difference. I'm slowly trying to bring in squeezing in the brake and blipping at the same time and am not even downshifting, just practicing that basic skill. Smooth so far.

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Start at an easy speed, no need to go fast.

I was trying to learn it at slower speeds, but couldn't feel what was going on because of the low RPM's. I couldn't tell what was working, and what wasn't. 80 feels good because all the way down to 3rd I can feel a difference.

 

OK, but, where does 80 mph and third gear go together for downshifting? That's going to be nearly redline on a typical sportbike, eh? Can't really accelerate up from there. And the lash is going to be fairly hard and the rpm spread between gears the greatest and most difficult to time well.

 

In any case, now that you know what is going on, you should find it much easier to execute at lower rpm and slow speeds where very little blipping is even required. This is also the easiest place to begin the no-clutch shifting as there is less lash on the drive train and less rpm difference between gears.

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JBird,

 

Is the theory clear on the downshifting and why/how?

 

C

Sure, I can see a couple benefits. I guess I just decided to triage learning it.

 

What benefits do you see?

 

What do you mean by "triage learning it"?

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JBird,

 

Is the theory clear on the downshifting and why/how?

 

C

Sure, I can see a couple benefits. I guess I just decided to triage learning it.

 

What benefits do you see?

 

What do you mean by "triage learning it"?

I can imagine that it would produce a smoother downshift, by giving less chance to get it wrong and getting rear wheel hop (done that). I can also see the benefit for the competitor in less time. In theory it should be gentler on the transmission. So it seems a superior way of downshifting with no ill side effects.

 

On the other hand, I've learned using the clutch so well, that it's probably my best mastered skill (LOL) and I don't need to spend but a few pennies on the control movements to bang 3 quick downshifts.

 

To triage learning to clutchless downshift means that I have other learning priorities that take precedence and I'd rather give them the attention and leave this to another time. It doesn't mean that I'll never get around to it, just not now.

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Lots of good stuff up here, tiny re-cap of a few things:

 

1. Timed correctly, it will not mess up your transmission. Every bike Will and I own has been ridden this way for years, no problems (and many other bikes and riders too).

2. Start at an easy speed, no need to go fast. The up and the downshifting can be done at any RPM virtually. I'm often in 4, 5th at 3k riding around town, not using the clutch at all.

3. Can pre-load the shift lever a little, but don't do it for a long time.

4. Leaning to do it with the clutch might be best in the long run. Like Racer pointed out, start with the blipping. I have had 2 students that struggled a little doing it with the clutch, did it w/out and thought it easier.

 

Let us know what happens.

 

CF

OK, here's what happens; I went out for a ride today to work on this. I can do the clutchless downshifting and it's almost as smooth as the upshifting. The little bit of throttle adjustment to unweight the transmission for downshifting is similar to what you need for upshifting. The one thing I need to be careful of is to make sure my foot isn't holding any pressure on the shift lever in between gears- if I don't quite get it up then it won't shift when I push down. I was not going very fast and the engine speed wasn't high. I can drive this was in normal traffic to change speed although coming up to a light I tend to not go through all the gears but rather hold the clutch in and just shift all the way down to first. The time I find it does not work is if I'm braking hard because then my throttle is not on at all and while holding the brake lever on I don't think it's practical to do much of any throttle management. Right? In this case I just use the clutch and shift.

Another experiment I did was when there was a bit of throttle on and I wanted to upshift. I was thinking about the blip thing. If you hold the throttle steady and pull in the clutch, the engine speed goes up- quickly. So what I did was hold the throttle steady, pulled in the clutch and shifted and let the clutch out, all very quickly. This worked out to be pretty smooth if you do it all as one quick action.

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Blipping has been a curiousity to me. I have always blipped for as long as I have been riding - 30 years. I don't remember learning it.

 

I'm always amazed at how difficult it is for experienced riders to blip their throttle. Time and again I hear about how they find it so difficult.

 

I've only found one successful way to teach blipping to people and to smooth out my blipping. I can't claim to have originated this technique, but I don't remember where I first heard of it.

 

I have them get up to about 40 MPH in 4th or 5th gear. Then I have them try to hold their speed steady as the shift down the gears - 3rd, 2nd, 1st, and then back up. Up and down over and over keeping the same road speed the whole time.

 

Then I have them up the MPH and do the same thing over and over.

 

Once they get a feel for the relation of throttle to RPM and road speed, they have a less difficult time blipping.

 

This is, of course, after addressing gross ergonomic issues.

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That sounds like a good exercise.

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I was thinking about just what you two are talking about on my way to a meeting this morning. The reason I didn't try it was because I was thinking that if I want the RPM's to match the engine speed downshifting from one gear to another is; wouldn't you want more RPM's to MATCH the higher gear you were in? Does your exercise work? I keep thinking more about track riding than street? Could you find a good entry speed for your corners? I use the engine to find a good speed. My laptimes are consistent.

Sorry I'm having such a hard time wrapping my brain around this. I've been riding for 10 years, and when I started doing track I first heard about it (about a year ago). I've half heartedly been trying it, and this chat seals that I have to learn it somehow. I've been doing well, but when I am braking into a slow corner, like to turn into the post office today, I overshoot. Probably because I'm not used to the brakes.

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Understanding the purpose and function of the transmission definitely helps to understand the how and why of the process.

 

Why we shift gears:

 

In a nutshell, by reducing the diameter of the final driven gear (or sprocket), or increasing the diameter of the drive gear, such that the ratio of the input to the output grows smaller, or, the ratio of the output to input grows larger... you get more revolutions on the driven side, read rear wheel.

 

When you accelerate in first gear, you eventually reach a road speed where the motor can't go any faster without blowing up. This is called "redline" and is indicated on your tachometer rpm's by a red line that says, "Go no further, beyond here be dragons... :o ...and little bits and pieces of motor strewn over the road".

 

So there you are, fingers in ears, with your motor screaming redline at 38 mph: WAAAAAAAHHHH (stop daddy it hurts)... "Oh lord, what to do, what to do... ?"

 

Enter Leo DaVinci and friends with the best thing since the sorcerer's stone or magical sword to slay dragons:

 

the transmission... which, by shifting to second gear, non-magically alters the ratio between input and putput such that the motor rpms are lower at the same road speed and you get to start all over again. Now you are well below redline at 38 mph and can make the motor go faster again, hence, making the bike go faster.

 

So, the higher the gear choice, the lower your rpm for the same road speed.

 

The basic concept:

 

A small wheel turns four times to turn a big wheel once. Make the small wheel twice as big and the same rotations will turn the big wheel twice as fast. Or half the rotations will turn the big wheel the same speed.

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OK, here's what happens; I went out for a ride today to work on this. I can do the clutchless downshifting and it's almost as smooth as the upshifting. The little bit of throttle adjustment to unweight the transmission for downshifting is similar to what you need for upshifting. The one thing I need to be careful of is to make sure my foot isn't holding any pressure on the shift lever in between gears- if I don't quite get it up then it won't shift when I push down. I was not going very fast and the engine speed wasn't high. I can drive this was in normal traffic to change speed although coming up to a light I tend to not go through all the gears but rather hold the clutch in and just shift all the way down to first. The time I find it does not work is if I'm braking hard because then my throttle is not on at all and while holding the brake lever on I don't think it's practical to do much of any throttle management. Right? In this case I just use the clutch and shift.

Another experiment I did was when there was a bit of throttle on and I wanted to upshift. I was thinking about the blip thing. If you hold the throttle steady and pull in the clutch, the engine speed goes up- quickly. So what I did was hold the throttle steady, pulled in the clutch and shifted and let the clutch out, all very quickly. This worked out to be pretty smooth if you do it all as one quick action.

 

Holding the clutch in and throttle on is called "speed shifting" and is hard on the clutch, wears it out too soon. It's not needed and doesn't really help anything. Just roll off the throttle for a moment, shift the gear.

 

When I do commute, one can go from 1st-6th, around town, and back down, never going over 5 or 6K (usually 3-4k), shifting as needed up or down. It's easy, give it a try.

 

CF

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OK, here's what happens; I went out for a ride today to work on this. I can do the clutchless downshifting and it's almost as smooth as the upshifting. The little bit of throttle adjustment to unweight the transmission for downshifting is similar to what you need for upshifting. The one thing I need to be careful of is to make sure my foot isn't holding any pressure on the shift lever in between gears- if I don't quite get it up then it won't shift when I push down. I was not going very fast and the engine speed wasn't high. I can drive this was in normal traffic to change speed although coming up to a light I tend to not go through all the gears but rather hold the clutch in and just shift all the way down to first. The time I find it does not work is if I'm braking hard because then my throttle is not on at all and while holding the brake lever on I don't think it's practical to do much of any throttle management. Right? In this case I just use the clutch and shift.

Another experiment I did was when there was a bit of throttle on and I wanted to upshift. I was thinking about the blip thing. If you hold the throttle steady and pull in the clutch, the engine speed goes up- quickly. So what I did was hold the throttle steady, pulled in the clutch and shifted and let the clutch out, all very quickly. This worked out to be pretty smooth if you do it all as one quick action.

 

Holding the clutch in and throttle on is called "speed shifting" and is hard on the clutch, wears it out too soon. It's not needed and doesn't really help anything. Just roll off the throttle for a moment, shift the gear.

 

When I do commute, one can go from 1st-6th, around town, and back down, never going over 5 or 6K (usually 3-4k), shifting as needed up or down. It's easy, give it a try.

 

CF

I've never done the speed shifting before, so I guess I won't continue it. My off-track riding is fine. The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

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OK, here's what happens; I went out for a ride today to work on this. I can do the clutchless downshifting and it's almost as smooth as the upshifting. The little bit of throttle adjustment to unweight the transmission for downshifting is similar to what you need for upshifting. The one thing I need to be careful of is to make sure my foot isn't holding any pressure on the shift lever in between gears- if I don't quite get it up then it won't shift when I push down. I was not going very fast and the engine speed wasn't high. I can drive this was in normal traffic to change speed although coming up to a light I tend to not go through all the gears but rather hold the clutch in and just shift all the way down to first. The time I find it does not work is if I'm braking hard because then my throttle is not on at all and while holding the brake lever on I don't think it's practical to do much of any throttle management. Right? In this case I just use the clutch and shift.

Another experiment I did was when there was a bit of throttle on and I wanted to upshift. I was thinking about the blip thing. If you hold the throttle steady and pull in the clutch, the engine speed goes up- quickly. So what I did was hold the throttle steady, pulled in the clutch and shifted and let the clutch out, all very quickly. This worked out to be pretty smooth if you do it all as one quick action.

 

Holding the clutch in and throttle on is called "speed shifting" and is hard on the clutch, wears it out too soon. It's not needed and doesn't really help anything. Just roll off the throttle for a moment, shift the gear.

 

When I do commute, one can go from 1st-6th, around town, and back down, never going over 5 or 6K (usually 3-4k), shifting as needed up or down. It's easy, give it a try.

 

CF

I've never done the speed shifting before, so I guess I won't continue it. My off-track riding is fine. The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

Approaching the turn you have a braking zone. It is during your heavy braking that you want to execute the downshifting to setup the proper gear for the drive through the turn, where ideally you are at the top of the meat of the powerband at your exit point.

 

After your braking zone (and this is important) you want to have a point where you intend to let-off the brakes and a point where you initiate your countersteer.

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The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

 

In that situation, I will complete most of my braking before executing my downshifts. Normally, I wait until the last possible moment before downshifting. In a racing situation, I would time my braking to end at my turn point so I let off the brakes and immediately turn having already completed my downshifts.

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The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

 

In that situation, I will complete most of my braking before executing my downshifts. Normally, I wait until the last possible moment before downshifting. In a racing situation, I would time my braking to end at my turn point so I let off the brakes and immediately turn having already completed my downshifts.

OK. You still downshift one gear at a time? What gears would you typically be going down through? In my case I was typically going from 4th to 2nd, but I've lost track so then I worry (spend attention $) that I'm not going into 1st or neutral. I've been watching the races on TV and it seems they click 2-3 gears at once (in one clutch pull).

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The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

 

In that situation, I will complete most of my braking before executing my downshifts. Normally, I wait until the last possible moment before downshifting. In a racing situation, I would time my braking to end at my turn point so I let off the brakes and immediately turn having already completed my downshifts.

OK. You still downshift one gear at a time? What gears would you typically be going down through? In my case I was typically going from 4th to 2nd, but I've lost track so then I worry (spend attention $) that I'm not going into 1st or neutral. I've been watching the races on TV and it seems they click 2-3 gears at once (in one clutch pull).

 

You can go through the gears, but you need to blip with every downshift. You don't have to let the clutch out, just blip while shifting.

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The only area I am not sure about though is on the track- if I'm going fast down the straight, coming to the end and I'm in say, 4th gear, coming up to the turn, do you downshift while braking and your speed is coming down? After the turn? I don't think mid-turn...

 

In that situation, I will complete most of my braking before executing my downshifts. Normally, I wait until the last possible moment before downshifting. In a racing situation, I would time my braking to end at my turn point so I let off the brakes and immediately turn having already completed my downshifts.

OK. You still downshift one gear at a time? What gears would you typically be going down through? In my case I was typically going from 4th to 2nd, but I've lost track so then I worry (spend attention $) that I'm not going into 1st or neutral. I've been watching the races on TV and it seems they click 2-3 gears at once (in one clutch pull).

 

Ok, for racing, we change our sprockets to be at (or near) redline in sixth (or top) gear at the end of the longest straight so as to utilize all the available power the engine has. So, at the end of a long straight, I am typically in top gear.

 

To reiterate, I downshift while braking, but, I get most of the braking done before downshifting so as to get the revs down and not lock the rear wheel. It also cuts down on engine braking which I prefer to avoid.

 

So, for a typical corner like Mid-Ohio T5, I'll be in sixth gear and bang about 3-4 downshifts in about 1 to 1.5 seconds. Lastly, I (and Valentino Rossi) downshift one gear at a time using the clutch and blipping for every gear. Check out Japan MotoGP at Motegi and you can see Val clutching multiple times for multiple downshifts.

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If the clutch doesn't come out (between each shift) does it really for sure drop down the gear? I've had it not, and think I can recall it going 2 years once, but not sure--anyone else on that point?

 

C

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So, for a typical cornere like Mid-Ohio T5, I'll be in sixth gear and bang about 3-4 downshifts in about 1 to 1.5 seconds. Lastly, I (and Valentino Rossi) downshift one gear at a time using the clutch and blipping for every gear. Check out Japan MotoGP at Motegi and you can see Val clutching multiple times for multiple downshifts

.

OK, I understand your downshifting one gear at a time with the clutch, but when you say you blip for each gear, I'm taking that to mean revving the engine a bit to match its speed to what is needed for the new gear. Are you completely done braking at this time? The part that I'm not getting is holding the brake lever with your right hand, and at the same time rolling the throttle on a little for each shift. Sounds like a lot of tricky right-hand work. Your right hand thumb and lower palm are wrapped around the throttle with your fingers on the lever- it seems awkward to rotate the throttle in this position. Am I understanding what you are saying correctly?

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So, for a typical cornere like Mid-Ohio T5, I'll be in sixth gear and bang about 3-4 downshifts in about 1 to 1.5 seconds. Lastly, I (and Valentino Rossi) downshift one gear at a time using the clutch and blipping for every gear. Check out Japan MotoGP at Motegi and you can see Val clutching multiple times for multiple downshifts

.

OK, I understand your downshifting one gear at a time with the clutch, but when you say you blip for each gear, I'm taking that to mean revving the engine a bit to match its speed to what is needed for the new gear. Are you completely done braking at this time? The part that I'm not getting is holding the brake lever with your right hand, and at the same time rolling the throttle on a little for each shift. Sounds like a lot of tricky right-hand work. Your right hand thumb and lower palm are wrapped around the throttle with your fingers on the lever- it seems awkward to rotate the throttle in this position. Am I understanding what you are saying correctly?

 

Ahhh... you have hit the nail on the head, my friend. Learning to blip the throttle while maintaining even brake pressure is the whole enchilada as they say.

 

The trick for me is to use one or two fingers on the brake lever and let those fingers slide back and forth over the lever while working the throttle with my thumb and last two fingers. It does take some practice, but, once you get the hang of it, it opens a lot of doors. Frankly, IMO, it is the number one skill needed for track riding. For learning purposes, I suggest getting your blip/shift skill sorted out first before adding the brake.

 

There are a number of threads devoted to this skill here, but, I think Keith has a chapter in his corner. That is probably the best place to start.

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Ahhh... you have hit the nail on the head, my friend. Learning to blip the throttle while maintaining even brake pressure is the whole enchilada as they say.

 

The trick for me is to use one or two fingers on the brake lever and let those fingers slide back and forth over the lever while working the throttle with my thumb and last two fingers. It does take some practice, but, once you get the hang of it, it opens a lot of doors. Frankly, IMO, it is the number one skill needed for track riding. For learning purposes, I suggest getting your blip/shift skill sorted out first before adding the brake.

 

There are a number of threads devoted to this skill here, but, I think Keith has a chapter in his corner. That is probably the best place to start.

Now that you mention this, on my 2nd to last track day I found myself working the throttle with my thumb and index finger, and fingers 3 and 4 (piano lesson counting- 1=thumb, 5=pinky) on the brake. I wasn't blipping though, but I found it was nice in that switching between braking and throttle control took no time or hand movement. I will look up the other material.

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The most common arrangement is the first two fingers, index and middle finger, on the brake lever, with the ring and pinky on the throttle with the thumb.

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