Clutchless shifting

Some time ago Gary mentioned upshifting without clutching (end of this post). At the time, still paranoid about everything and its mother, my couple of maiden attempts at this yielded some scary results. I'd either roll the throttle off too much or too little, resulting in the bike jumping forward or near stalling alarmingly. No matter what i did i couldn't get it right, and a lot of it probably had to do with my worrying about everything else while trying to do one thing. They say women are good at multi-tasking, but really, that's something else altogether.

I gave up. As an old school driver who won't drive an auto, i love the clutch. I was quite happy clutching around, aching hands or not. As i progressed through the last month my gear changes up and down got pretty damn smooth and i was happy.

I forgot all about clutchless shifting stuff until i accidentally did it one day; clicked my gear peg up and then realised i hadn't clutched in at all, but did a very small roll off the throttle.

And oh boy was that smooth! Best mistake i ever made.

My next conscious attempts were choppy though, still the same problem with not knowing how much to close the throttle off. Google produced a little bit more education on the subject in the form of the Riding Skills series in Sport Rider magazine - these articles are fabulous. Detailed but easy to understand.

I've been practicing for the last couple of days, and and it's working. It wasn't that hard, once i got over the idea that i'd break something without clutching. I've never shifted faster, or ridden smoother. Good tip Gary!