vanrootn wrote:Hey there, when riding with a pillion I have trouble changing gears smoothly! Not all the time but my wifey crashes into the back of my helmet on the occasion.
When riding by myself I have no problems making smooth changes.
Is it an issue that lots of people experience or is it just the pressure of trying to make the shifts smoother for your other half?
Anyone have any tips/ do anything different when riding with a passenger? Or just practice makes perfect?
whats happening here is you've got a bit too much throttle happening when you get round to doing the gear change and thats what causes her helmet to bang into the back of yours, as well as her being too close to you (is she?) to fix this you got to decrease your throttle output to almost none , say 5-10% throttle, when you make the gear change, and then that'll make the ride a lot smoother not just for her but for YOU as well.
the other thing is she may not be paying all that much attention to whats going on with you and is not preparing herself for the gear changes. it does help having a pillion who's aware of whats going on, that stuff will take time.. the more she gets on the back with you, the better.
ive never found longer clutch in's to do anything worthwhile really, cause if youve goosed it a fair bit off the lights then pull it in to do a slow change up to 2nd, the whole bike tilts forward an awful lot, so the more efficiently you can make the gear change, the less you have to roll off the throttle to smooth it out and you can maintain the acceleration momentum. it takes practice but once it clicks you'll be fine.
having the bike set up for pillion work will help a lot too, i didnt skimp on this part though and the end result was my bike (GSXR1k) handled like i was riding solo (but that was with a pillion i'd trained over a number of years).. i assume in your case, there's the lateral movement backwards and forwards when you change gears and thats adding to the helmet banging.. kind of brings me to the next point.
i dont know how you ride in each gear but in the top gears like 4th to 6th, they'll offer the least engine braking when you have to adjust your throttle inputs while riding, changes in traffic flow or corner approaches will give you a fair bit of engine braking if youre in 1st/2nd or even 3rd at higher rpm.. so riding in higher gears will make things a lot smoother, helps if you have plenty of torque at low rpm too. i guess what i'm saying here is to minimise your gear changes and use what torque you have, to move along.