Neutral to First Needs 2 De-Clutchings

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acadian said:
I'm one of those training instructors drilling that "crap" and my advice to the OP is to ignore you
Click to expand...
I'm actually selective on what I was drilled with. The staying in gear at stops and two finger brake covering are keepers but I tossed the "never enter intersection to wait for left turns" as this would mean never being able to turn left in this city. Too many drivers coming through on stale green and stale yellow and even seconds after red lights. By standing on white line waiting to make a left for a gap, you'd have to go after the last red light runner had cleared, making yourself a red light turner! Better to hold in intersection as cars do, then others know you are making that turn eventually.
I got dinged on my road test doing what my instructor had drilled into me.
 
Here in what I call northern Mexico if you want to make that left turn you'd best be in the intersection or you'll be waiting all damn day to make your turn because they just keep pushing through well past the change to red. This is a trend which began about 30 years ago and causes my BP to climb drastically. I'm glad that folks have to have training now to get their cycle license though because it was tiring seeing the mess being cleaned up all of the time.... At least training slows it some by forcing them to think.
Off topic I know, but I was a fortunate survivor of the old days.
 
As we also cover clutches in this post I am inches away from buying a set of Barnett plates, they are supposed to be very good.
Any disagreement or advice on this.
 
Woody850 said:
As we also cover clutches in this post I am inches away from buying a set of Barnett plates, they are supposed to be very good.
Any disagreement or advice on this.
Click to expand...

I run them (dry) in my 920 and think they’re great!
 
Tornado said:
I'm actually selective on what I was drilled with. The staying in gear at stops and two finger brake covering are keepers but I tossed the "never enter intersection to wait for left turns" as this would mean never being able to turn left in this city. Too many drivers coming through on stale green and stale yellow and even seconds after red lights. By standing on white line waiting to make a left for a gap, you'd have to go after the last red light runner had cleared, making yourself a red light turner! Better to hold in intersection as cars do, then others know you are making that turn eventually.
I got dinged on my road test doing what my instructor had drilled into me.
Click to expand...

My standard to qualify students for an unrestricted M class is to have them move forward into the intersection from the L-turn lane, and then position themselves in the left tire track parallel to traffic, all with a view to increasing their sight-line towards oncoming traffic and blocking left turning cyclists attempting to undercut them on the left.

Fast Eddie said:
Maybe with a modern bike.

But with old bikes with heavy cable operated clutches the risk of a sudden cable failure is very real.

You’re also wearing out your clutch bearing etc.

And tiring out your left arm!
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Sorry, don't buy it. If your cable breaks it's because your clutch is not set up properly, and you know it Eddie. I'll take the lower risk of a busted cable over the statistically higher risk of ending up as the meat in a car sandwich.
 
Woody850 said:
As we also cover clutches in this post I am inches away from buying a set of Barnett plates, they are supposed to be very good.
Any disagreement or advice on this.
Click to expand...

Lots of people use them. When I first tried them with stock configuration I found them to drag when wet with oil, such that neutral was impossible to find and first gear would creep when stopped. But now that I have a dry clutch (belt drive) they're great.

YMMV
 
Quote. ............... "Sorry, don't buy it. If your cable breaks it's because your clutch is not set up properly, and you know it Eddie."


Sorry I don't buy this, a clutch cable can break for many reasons
Not just "the clutch not set up properly"
Cheers
 
Well..... I'll just go howl at the moon tonight because I'm not arguing with the commandments, …… though I won't speak of what I do. Like the wheelies 40 years ago & the kawa 900 that packed my lunch and ate it too.
 
Triton Thrasher said:
The Commando Owner’s handbook agrees with me.

And for good reason.

Last paragraph, page 14.

http://www.classicbike.biz/Norton/OwnersManuals/70s/73Commando-OwnerMan.pdf
Click to expand...

It's unlikely NVT were actually thinking about "rider safety" when they wrote that, besides, traffic conditions have changed a lot in the 40+ years since that was published.

None of this matters. This is just going to deteriorate into another round of anecdotes like; "loud pipes save lives" and "never touch the front brake or you'll go down..."

Ride your bike however the hell you want to. Just don't opine on a public forum about how you know better than the experts who are trained to teach people potentially life saving tactics.

Personal experience doesn't qualify as generalizeable knowledge.
 
My daughter took the 3 day wknd course offered here in Canada by the National MC safety group or something .... she passed no problem .... on our first ride out together she on a Yamaha 225 dual purpose bike she went down hard before we had covered a kilometre ... unhurt she pushed her new bike home sold it the next week and got a Golf , she will ride on back of her man’s KLR but has lost interest , instructors gave her a pass for unknown reasons , what I saw was no confidence , how could these experts allow that ... just sayin’
 
I suggest that TT finalised this debate in post 26 when he said that OP now has “a variety of viewpoints to consider”.

And after such consideration, he is free to choose whichever he wishes.

As are the rest of us.
 
Perhaps sitting with the engine running with bike in gear and the clutch in would help in some circumstances but I suspect you will
be unable to react properly and effectively as you cannot sit and watch your back your front and sides constantly.
And a lot of training stuff may well be useful on a modern bike but difficult to perform on an oldie.
 
baz said:
Quote. ............... "Sorry, don't buy it. If your cable breaks it's because your clutch is not set up properly, and you know it Eddie."


Sorry I don't buy this, a clutch cable can break for many reasons
Not just "the clutch not set up properly"
Cheers
Click to expand...

Not just a broken cable. Anything that causes you to lose your grip on the lever will send the bike into forward motion.
 
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