Changing Gears on a Motorcycle for Safe and Smooth Riding

Changing gears on a motorcycle is not only essential for smooth and efficient riding, but it also plays a crucial role in ensuring your safety on the road. Whether you're a beginner or an experienced rider, mastering the art of shifting gears is key for a more enjoyable and confident riding experience. In this blog post, we'll delve into the basics of changing gears on a motorcycle, including when and why to shift, as well as the different techniques involved in downshifting, upshifting and quickshifting. So, grab your helmet and let's get started!

Motorcycle gears will come to you a little bit as a surprise, when you come from driving a car, especially one with the diesel engine. Motorbikes are much more performance based and their engines are designed to run in much higher revs.

Changing gears on a motorbike is not only a basic technical skill, that makes your motorcycle riding possible and enjoyable, but when performed incorrectly, can become a safety hazard. These situations include locking your rear wheel when downshifting abruptly and releasing your clutch too fast if your motorcycle is not equipped with a slipper clutch. Another hazardous situation can arise, when changing gears while cornering and leaning the motorcycle. Your tyres can lose traction or your left foot can get under the foot peg and scrape the pavement. While carrying a pillion passenger helmet head-butts often occur when gear shifting is not smooth.

The basic motorbike gear shifting technique involves using the clutch. When on a new motorcycle, always get familiar with its clutch and clutch lever, learning where exactly the clutch engagement point is. Pull on the clutch lever, shift to first gear and slowly release. The point where the motorbike starts moving forward is your clutch engagement point. If possible, adjust your clutch lever to your comfort and style. My tip is to always clutch with two fingers, leaving my pinkie and ring finger around the handlebar grip and in between the grip and the lever. Based on the engagement point of the clutch, you barely ever need to squeeze the clutch all the way to the grip.

A typical gear shift pattern is the same on all modern motorcycles, unless it has been customized and it's first down, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth up, neutral being between one and two.

Squeeze the clutch lever when your motorcycle reaches the desired speed and RPMs. Roll off the throttle with your right hand, change the low gear using the gear shifter, smoothly release the clutch and roll on the throttle again. Although in this order, the whole procedure should be performed under one second and requires some practice and coordination. The undesired outcome of slow upshifting is that the motorbike will lose momentum in between gears, revs will fall and your pillion passenger will be dangling back and forth mostly giving you a helmet head-butt.

When you need to change to a lower gear, pull on the clutch lever, roll off the throttle, shift down using your gear shifter, slowly release the clutch lever to prevent sudden jerking or even locking of the rear wheel and finally roll back on the throttle if needed.

Stalling your motorcycle is embarrassing, especially after filtering in between cars to get to the front of the line at the lights. Practice finding the engagement point of your clutch and always start on first gear with a little bit of throttle before starting to release your clutch. Your throttle grip should be adjusted to have about 2 mm of a turn, before engaging.

Quick shifting is essentially shifting gears without engaging the clutch. It can be performed safely and without any harm to the gearbox and used for both upshifting and downshifting. Many modern motorbikes are equipped with a quickshifter or an aftermarket quickshifter can be fitted to them.

If your motorcycle does not have a quickshifter, don’t worry, you can still shift gears without using a clutch and it is more fun anyway. Make sure you first master standard changing gears technique with a clutch, because this is an essential skill that you need to have. Although changing gears without a clutch can be performed while both upshifting and downshifting, it makes only sense upshifting and works best from the second gear up.

In order to upshift without a clutch, you need to be accelerating fast. Once you reach middle or high revs, place your foot under the gear shifter and press against it upward, as if you want to change to a higher gear. Then quickly roll off and on the throttle in a split second and the gear will just slip in.

Now when you understand clutchless upshifting, there is a neat skill to have when shifting down and it’s called rev-matching. Rev matching is a technique to match the revs of your engine to the revs of your rear wheel. Again, it can be done automatically by quickshifters and auto blippers, or manually, which is more fun.

1. Smoother downshifting without the jerking caused by the rear wheel revs needing to adjust to the revs of the engine. This will be appreciated not only by you, but by your pillion passenger as well.
2. Quicker downshifting, since you don’t have to release your clutch lever slowly and you don’t need to wait for the revs adjustment between the gears. If your motorbike does not poses a slipper clutch, this is also a method to prevent an accidental rear wheel lockup when abruptly downshifting and being too quick on the clutch lever release.
3. It sounds and feels cool.

Squeeze your clutch lever, roll off the throttle and shift one gear down. Blip the throttle quickly with your wrist. The blip needs to be quick and short, and it does not have to be much - 10 to 20% or increasing the rpm by 1000 should be enough. When the revs are at the highest point, quickly release the clutch lever. It requires some coordination and takes some time, but every gear change downward is a good opportunity to practice and soon you will be rev-matching naturally without thinking about it.

Changing gears on a motorcycle smoothly and safely is an essential skill for any motorcycle rider. Proper shifting technique not only ensures the longevity of your motorbike but also keeps you and your pillion passenger safe on the road.

Upshifting and downshifting with a clutch is the traditional way of changing gears on a motorbike, but quickshifting and rev-matching are techniques that can make the experience more efficient and fun. Quickshifting allows you to upshift without using the clutch, which can save time and make for a smoother ride. Rev-matching, on the other hand, matches the engine revs to the rear wheel, making for smoother downshifting and preventing accidental rear wheel lockups.

Remember, practice makes perfect when it comes to shifting gears. Take the time to familiarize yourself with the different techniques and find what works best for you and your motorcycle. By mastering proper shifting technique, you can ensure a safer and more enjoyable ride on your motorcycle.