I‘ve taken the MSF class and everything, but don‘t have my own motorcycle yet. During the class we would only primarily be in 2nd or 1st gear the whole time, so here‘s what I don‘t understand.If I‘m in 3rd gear or so and I have a red light up ahead of me which I expect will turn green pretty soon, how do I use both the brakes and downshifting at the same time to slow down? I want to use my brakes so the brake lights turn on and the car behind me knows what I‘m doing, but at the same time, I don‘t want to just pull in the clutch and brake to a point of being too slow to be in 3rd gear to start moving again. Should I hold the back brake down while downshifting so my engine speed can match my road speed?
Turn DOWN the throttle. Hand brake, Clutch and downshift, Keep clutch engaged and a gear that will pull the bike to accelerate. #1, Johnny's wrong staying a gear that wont accelerate is a stall looking for a place to happen, it's not hard to downshift, if the light does change you'll still need to downshift to get into a gear to go Sounds like a lot, but it's easy,, and fun. Be riding since '67, driving the same , only in the last year have I seen so many saying to coast with the clutch or shift to neutral.
Often you want to slow way down but you don't want to stop. Like if you're going around a corner or a tight curve. If you're in top gear, or a high gear, you pull in the clutch and shift down, then when you let out the clutch the engine speeds up and it will slow you down--that's called 'engine braking'. You're going to need that lower gear to speed up again, so it works good in both directions. With a little practice you learn to decide whether you need to downshift one gear or two, or even more, for instance if you are slowing from 75 mph to 20. If you make the wrong choice, when you speed up again you find you're either in too high or too low a gear, so you make the correction quickly, in a fraction of a second. The business of clutching and shifting is several discrete steps--roll off the throttle, pull in the clutch, shift, let out the clutch while perhaps adding a little throttle. It sounds complicated to talk about, but in practice you do it so often that it becomes like one fluid motion.
I'm an avid dirtbike rider, and I have to make quick stops frequently when im out there with friends. What you do, is your gonna shift down to first gear, then right after you pull the clutch back out, pull in the brake. Either brakes you use is fine. It's easy, and the MSF class will make it easier for you, too.
