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[The heir to the British throne on his trusty steed]

Part of the fun of driving anything (cars or bikes) is being able to do something really technical smoothly, and get it right every time.  Driving a car you know the real drivers from the poseurs by how smoothly they can heel-toe (a technique for braking while at the same time “blipping” the throttle and downshifting).  The process is a little simpler on a motorcycle but it’s still a handful unless you’ve had a bit of practice at it… Now if you’re already a pro at braking and downshifting then you can skip all the details, just jump down to the comments section and give us your best tip on developing this skill.  For the rest of you, read on!

Let’s get really basic for a moment: When you shift down one gear you simply [1] pull in the clutch lever, [2] kick the gear shift down a gear, and [3] slowly let the clutch out.  That’s the most basic way, let’s call it the 3-step.  And if you’re just learning to ride, that’s what you should do.  A better way to shift adds one more step: [1] pull in the clutch lever, [2] “blip” the throttle so that the rev’s match what the RPMs will be in the lower gear, [3] while kicking the gear shift down, and [4] let out the clutch lever.  If you do this properly you can let out the clutch lever pretty quickly because the engine rev’s will already match what it will be in the lower gear – we call that rev-matching.  Simple, right?  The TRICK however is actually doing this well…and then doing this well WHILE braking…at the same time!

If you’ve never done this before, you’ll probably over-rev at some point, and downshift only to find yourself going FASTER.  So make sure to pick safe parts on the road to practice this.  Another common error is that you’ll squeeze the brakes harder when you’re blipping the throttle; so make sure you won’t be surprising anyone behind you when you practice this.  Wanna try?  Here’s the drill: get up to 4th or 5th gear going around 50mph, brake as if coming to a turn and downshift twice to 2nd gear.

So here are my tips on how to develop your braking/downshifting skill, and you can check the comments for more tips from other City Bikers:

1. Use light to medium braking. Blipping the throttle while holding the brakes is hard, but it’s a lot easier when you’re not pulling hard on the brakes. Most of the braking and downshifting will be under light or medium braking anyway…
2. Use small throttle blips. It takes some skill to rev your engine to exactly 7,000 rpms.  But it’s a LOT easier to rev to 2 or 3,000 rpms.  Stick to small blips and you can work toward larger ones as you get more accurate.
3. Late shifting. You don’t really need a lot of engine braking on the rear wheel, so there’s no reason why you should start shifting early.  Wait till you are in the lower RPM range and your speed is almost at the target speed and downshift two or three gears one after another….bang bang bang, while braking and blipping…  It’s easier to rev-match smoothly in the lower rpm range.  This solves most people’s downshifting problems right off the bat!

Once you get this down – the next level of braking mastery is doing all this without the clutch (doesn’t work on all bikes, but will for any sportbike).  Anyway, God speed and happy biking!

Related posts:

1. Clutchless Shifting
2. Braking tip: Unintended acceleration…
3. Riding Tips: braking “backwards”
4. Which gear are you in?
5. Riding Skills: Hard Braking