How to Ride a Clutched Bike

INTRO 

Before starting our main topic today, allow me to introduce to you what is a clutch. A clutch is a mechanical device that engages or disengages the drive from the engine to the transmission and ultimately to the rear wheel. Think of the clutch as being the middle man, between the engine and transmission. By pulling the clutch, you are releasing the bike’s engine from its transmission, putting a bike in the neutral (N) mode and be ready to shift gears. Just like driving a manual car which you have to step on the clutch with your left foot before changing to your desired gear, you have to pull the clutch with your left hand in order to change to upshift or downshift gear. Now that we've covered how clutched bikes work, let's get into learning how to ride them!

STEP 1:GEAR 1

As we mentioned earlier, we have to pull in the clutch before we engage the gear. So for beginners, it is recommended to start the bike engine with neutral gear (N) first, and then pull the clutch and change to the first gear by stepping down the gear lever, until a "thomp" sound is heard.

STEP 2:CLUTCH (KNOW YOUR FRICTION ZONE!)

Now that you're in first gear, wondering if it is time to let go of the clutch. The answer is: Yes and No. If you're a long-time rider, sure you can just dump the clutch, while adding a little bit of throttle and accelerate as if you're in a drag race. However, beginner riders usually lack the skills to pull that off at first. So, it is recommended that you get to understand your bike's clutch, before you pull a "Fast & Furious" on your bike. There are three zones of the clutch that a beginner riders should be familiar with: The dead zone, friction zone and free zone. The dead zone is when the clutch is pulled in fully and and no power is delivered to the bike's wheel. The magic happens in the friction zone. This is the zone when power is delivered to the bike and the bike starts to move even without any throttle. But do keep in mind to be very careful during the friction zone. A lot of beginners tend to let go of the clutch too fast, causing the bike to stall, or even worse drop their precious bike. Each bikes has their own friction zone, so do play around with the clutch and familiarize yourself with the friction zone of your clutch.

STEP 3:UPSHIFT

If you've made it so far, you're now probably riding on the bike. But now begs the question: How do I go faster? Before we get into that, do keep in mind that for upshifting, only getting from neutral to first gear is being done by stepping on the gear lever, whereas the rest are being done by hooking the gear lever up. Now that you're in gear 1 and intending to change to gear 2, the same steps are applied here: Pull in the clutch, upshift to gear 2, release the clutch. And there you go, you have learned how to upshift to a higher gear. The same steps are applied for the rest of the gear you intend to upshift.

STEP 4:DOWNSHIFT

Now that you've learned how to upshift to accelerate, it is time to learn how to downshift as well. Downshifts are being done when you intend to slow down, or when you're trying to pick up speed from a lower gear (especially on a steep hill). The same steps to upshift applies to downshift as well, but instead of hooking the gear lever, you're stepping down on it. Pull in the clutch, step on the gear lever, release the clutch SLOWLY (especially on lower gears if you're riding faster than 20km/h), so that you won't decelerate too quickly. If you intend to stop the bike fully, pull in the clutch fully and slowly apply the brakes until you come to a full stop, and upshift from gear 1 to neutral. Do keep in mind that beginners tend to accidentally upshift to gear 2 when they're trying to put the bike in neutral gear. This is because the neutral gear is positioned in between the first gear and the second gear. So if you're intending to shift from gear 1 to neutral, do try to hook up the gear lever as gently as possible. After you're in neutral gear, you can finally release the clutch.

CONCLUSION

Well that's it folks! That's all the basics of how to ride a clutched bike. But before you leave this blog, do keep in mind that riding a clutched bike isn't as hard as or as dangerous as everyone thought. Just like everything else in life, you have to practice not to be the best, but to be better! With that being said, good luck and stay safe while practicing how to ride a clutched bike! Here's a link to a video below to conclude what we've learned today!

A Step-by-step Tutorial Video of How to Ride a Clutched Bike