Shifting and speed

[TX Wide Glide]

I grew up on Automatic cars. I learned to sort of drive a manual transmission when I was assigned in Europe and they said "you are on patrol tonight, here is your Opel patrol car"

I never really had to go too fast on the small base, so I am not a veteran clutch user.

I was riding today and trying to feel out the gears. I did the first, second, third thing, but could not tell when I should have been in 4th or if I should have been in 4th. Hell, 6th seems like I would never use it.

Is there a benefit to using 5th and 6th versus staying in 4th?

[jamephipp]

You;ll prob find that if you allow ten to fifteen miles an hour per gear and adjust your ear to this pattern it will help with your shifting. I've been riding since the sixties and we didn't have automatics then. An automatic was a luxury to us, Usually you'll find that 5 or 6 th gear will be mainly used on speeds over 55 and usually on the open road. I've got a metric and if I'm on the back roads most of my cruising is done in 4th gear because it lags the engine too much which is not good. Any how just try this and see if it helps ya until that ear is tuned to what you need to listen for.

Congrates on the new bike

[TX Wide Glide]

You;ll prob find that if you allow ten to fifteen miles an hour per gear and adjust your ear to this pattern it will help with your shifting. I've been riding since the sixties and we didn't have automatics then. An automatic was a luxury to us, Usually you'll find that 5 or 6 th gear will be mainly used on speeds over 55 and usually on the open road. I've got a metric and if I'm on the back roads most of my cruising is done in 4th gear because it lags the engine too much which is not good. Any how just try this and see if it helps ya until that ear is tuned to what you need to listen for.

Congrates on the new bike

Thanks for the info. I don't have any good friends locally with bikes that I can turn to for answers to questions so I am counting on posting up here to try to get some stuff answered.

I took the bike out today and loved it. I am getting more comfortable on it and would have stayed out all day if it were not for the fact that I had left the wife and kids at home. I kind of felt guilty just cruising around, so I called it quits after about 45 minutes.

[jamephipp]

Another tip if you get on rolling terrain on back roads watch it if you've had a lot of rain back in the late 80 s a buddy and I where ripping down this country road when we topped this knoll and the entire road was gone. Joey stopped but I was ripping along at 80 and just froze I by the grace of god made it across a 45 foot section of flooded road surrounded by a wall of water. To this day I still don't know how I made it but it showed my cocky rump to slow down and watch the road better. Bye the was it was western ky north of Fort Campbell.