I've been talking to my friend about shifting cars and street bikes, and we got into a little argument. I have no clue how to shift a bike so I asked him couple questions. Sorry it's a bit long.

here is part of the convo, I am bvsls1:

bvsls1 (11:46:44 PM): do you just clutch in and downshift until you get to neutral?
BotherMitch (11:47:09 PM): u can if u want to be lazy but just like on a car its harder on the bike
BotherMitch (11:47:17 PM): and on the brakes and ****
bvsls1 (11:47:23 PM): well in a car
bvsls1 (11:47:30 PM): I dont have to go through 3, 2, and 1
bvsls1 (11:47:34 PM): I just put it in Neutral
bvsls1 (11:47:41 PM): doesnt work like that on a bike?
BotherMitch (11:47:46 PM): becuz ur lazy
bvsls1 (11:47:54 PM): if you're in 4th
bvsls1 (11:47:58 PM): you dont go to 3rd
bvsls1 (11:48:01 PM): then 2nd
bvsls1 (11:48:02 PM): then 1st
bvsls1 (11:48:08 PM): you go straight to Neutral
bvsls1 (11:48:10 PM): thats not being lazy
BotherMitch (11:48:34 PM): lol im not going to argue with u about it. you think whatever
bvsls1 (11:48:47 PM): lol
bvsls1 (11:49:55 PM): you do know i am talkin about a car right
BotherMitch (11:50:03 PM): i know you are
bvsls1 (11:50:03 PM): not a bike
bvsls1 (11:50:18 PM): then why would you downshift to 3rd then 2nd then 1st then neutral
bvsls1 (11:50:30 PM): thats more wear and tear on the clutch
bvsls1 (11:50:33 PM): and wastes more gas
BotherMitch (11:50:47 PM): because its all around better on the car
BotherMitch (11:50:53 PM): even if u use the clutch more
BotherMitch (11:50:56 PM): and waste more gas
bvsls1 (11:51:22 PM): i am not too sure about that
BotherMitch (11:52:07 PM): and on a bike u hardly ever use the front brake
BotherMitch (11:52:20 PM): that leads to a world of **** if u press it too hard
bvsls1 (11:52:24 PM): https://ls1tech.com/forums/showthrea...ight=downshift
BotherMitch (11:53:46 PM): i dont even want to read that
BotherMitch (11:53:51 PM): looks just like a poll to me
BotherMitch (11:54:02 PM): not like its fact
bvsls1 (11:54:16 PM): ok
bvsls1 (11:55:07 PM): all i am sayin is i dont agree with you sayin that its better for the car to downshift through EVERY gears before you get to n
BotherMitch (11:55:18 PM): thats cool
bvsls1 (11:55:19 PM): that is all
BotherMitch (11:55:25 PM): i dont care honestly

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who's the idiot? I do downshift occasionally, but does downshifting through EVERY gears have any benefits?

 

Yeah...you'll wear out your synchros faster, so it'll be less time in between rebuilds. Oh wait...

 

theres no way downshifting through every gear is better. being lazy? how bout saving gas and using momentum?

 

This is why I hate people with bikes. They buy bikes because they are fast out of the box so by nature you get a lot of idiots who know nothing but think they are the man because they have something fast. Known a thousand of them.

 

Car transes and bike transes are two entirely different animals. The long and short of it is that bikes have a sequential transmissions with basket clutches... when you shift a bike it's down all the way for first, up a 1/2 click to neutral, up 1/2 click to 2nd (you can go from first straight to second with a full up click), up 1 to 3rd, up 1 to 4th, up 1 to 5th, up 1 to 6th.... Obviously downshiting is opposite.

You rely on downshifting to slow a bike, and control RPM in corners (important for stability) a lot more than you do in a car.... In a usual stop from 70mph in 6th on the freeway I don't need to even touch the brakes until I'm in 2nd turning about 8,000 RPM and letting the engine do all the braking most of the way down. Whatch any motorcycle road race and you'll see their left leg twitching over and over as they use downshifting along with engine braking coming into a corner.

A typical sport bike will have a redline well above 10,000 RPM and a first gear that will do 65+MPH and weigh in the area of 375-490lbs. The clutches and transes are made to take high RPM shifts repeatedly without excessive wear on any of the components. It's a whole different sceneario than trying to regularly slow a high torque, high inertia engine, in a heavy car using engine braking and sloppy non rev matched shifts.

The short version is if you want to slow a car down by downshifting to help with braking you don't go through each gear. You pick the gear appropriate to the speed, match the revs shift. On a bike you'll typically bounce down each gear because of the sequential trans, huge RPM range, and low inertia engine.

 

he owns an 02 SS A4

 

THE FRONT BREAK is 70% of your stopping power for on thing. tell him to try that out.

 

I resisted the urge to go there, but I'm glad someone else caught it.

A fast bike is much harder to ride fast than a fast car is to drive. Especially in the twisties. Trust me.... it's not all just pull the throttle and go. There's nothing worse than to be on the freeway racing a viper at 140+, getting your a$$ kicked around by the wind, getting bucked up and down by the road, trying to stay up on traffic ahead, and not getting smoked and you look over and he's got the seat reclined trying to find what radio station he wants to listen to.

 

No, really?

Go talk to some bike people. Since my rant was about BIKE people and not the people involved in this thread. Notice I never stated anything about CAR people although most aren't much better.

 

The point of this thread isn't whether or not a bike is harder to drive than a car...

This guy I am having an argument with owns an 02 SS A4 and is about to get a bike.

 

Sorry, for my interruption. I guess that is just me. I ramble in speech and when I re-read considering other people's views I could see what you mean.

 

When that guy buys a bike, can you video the results of his "and on a bike u hardly ever use the front brake"? I'm guessing 2-4k$ worth of damage in the first week from sliding wrecks.

 

lol, it's cool.

 

on my bike i used the front brakes, eventually u learn how hard u can really brake with the front, which is alot more then u think (think endo). also i never downshifted on my bike, if u do it wrong ull lock the back and lose control, the only time id downshift was when i was going slow, also i dont downshift in my car cause its easier and cheaper to buy new rotors and brake pads then a new clutch and synchros.......

 

^^ thank you

 

If you downshift properly and double clutch it doesn't put any undo wear on the synchros and clutch. I have a trans with 100,000 miles on it thats always been double clutched when it was downshifted. Half the downshifts were from 6th to 4th or 3rd at freeway speeds and 4000+ rpms in the lower gear. I just rebuilt it last month and all the synchros were fine. The only reason I bought the rebuild kit is because I was in there replacing the input shaft anyway. The old "clutches are more expensive than brakes" line is an excuse for people that don't know how to aggressively drive a manual trans car/bike.
As for the bike you'd have to be really stupid to lock up the rear tire downshifting. You've got 12,000 RPM of rev range to work with and a first gear that's gonna do 65+ MPH. It's easy, bike or car... get the revs where they should be with a blip of the throttle, and shift down to the appropriate gear. If you're dumb enough to shift a sport bike from 4th to 1st at 125mph you shouldn't be riding one because you can't handle a manual transmission properly. That's just called natural selection.

 

fine im sure u can downshift without any wear, but i dont have enough pateince to rev match then let the clutch out and then do it again in another gear, when i could just use my brakes that will haev to be changed anyway cause gm's rotors suck
uuummm, first i had 15,500rpm of rev range, which makes it more dangerous, on top of the constint looking out for people that might hit u i have to downshift and if god-forbid i get distracted for a quarter of a second and let that huge rev range fall to something low and i let that clutch out, that back tire will lock up, have u ever ridden a bike? the rear contact patch is only about 4 square inches, if i downshift and let the clutch out kinda fast any more then 2,000rpm diffrence of my mph the back will lock alittle, and alittle is all it takes to fall on a bike.
but yes i have downshifted on like an offramp where thers no one infront of me or inback, and on top of that i had a friend that constinently dowshifted his bike, that **** would slow donw so fast when he did it that cars behind it wouldnt see him doing it cause it s alittle bike, so i decided its to dangerous

 

I've been riding bikes since I was 17. I've ridden at least 10 different bikes all 750cc plus, and probably put easily 100,000 miles on bikes living in Ohio. I've ridden everything from parallel twins, v-twins, and inline fours, and regularly done track days on both ZX9s I owned. If you know what you're doing you should be downshifting a bike, and it's not a safety issue. I'm not gonna get in a pissing match with you.

 

If you are on a bike and racing a viper and he is changing his station and winning then you either have a broken bike or you don't know how to ride. Also in a straight line it is as easy as twisting the throttle which is why there are so many sportbike related deaths. Twisties are a different story I agree.

 

I don't know why you would bother double clutching. Maybe in emergency downshift conditions like bad weather or something where you need to engine brake but I see no point in normal driving. To each his own though.