Blipping The Throttle

[speedpro]

Oh no! not the 2 finger vs 4 finger argument!

Older bikes with less than new brakes will usually require 4 fingers.

Try braking with 2 fingers & changing to 4 mid stream. It’s pretty hard.

Are we far enough off the thread yet?

All good points. On some of the older bikes I've raced 6-8 fingers on the brake would have been about right. Getting levers in the right place, distance from the grip AND how far rotated around the bar are both important to being able to brake hard and steadily while blipping the throttle. It's a good technique to get a handle on doing right. I'd be embarrassed just popping it down through gears.

One thing to watch for is if you adjust your brake lever in and only use two fingers, is if you pull it real hard do you trap the other two fingers?? I had a short lever on my bucket for a while to get round that problem.

If your levers aren't adjustable for span, like mine, you could file the bit that pushes the piston and then glue thin metal strips on the release stop to limit the lever free-play. I had to do that on my McIntosh to get it right.

[Kwaka-Kid]

Paparazzi had a good point shade, like i showed you i have my brake lever set really far in towards the bar, some might say that then i will crush my fingers when i am braking but when properly braking hard i use all the fingers and blip by rolling my thumb/hand.

Works pretty much smooth and never notice problems on many the different bikes i ride.

I will say though that the NC30 has a slipper clutch meaning i can dump it comprativly harder and it wont have such a bite effect. Anyway i dont really think of "blipping" the throttle neither, that requires too much concentration of snapping throttle open and closed real fast and the right amount, i cant explain it but i just decelerate, change down and bring throttle back up and let the throttle off again as im letting the clutch out.

or i can be sloppy as really "use" my slipper clutch, jsut throttle off comlpetely and change down dumping the clutch in each gear, it is still pretty smooth just means a little more wear on the plates i guess?.

[Teflon]

Oh no! not the 2 finger vs 4 finger argument!

On my GasGas Trials bike I use one finger on both clutch & brake.

However on most bikes 1 finger is not enough for adequate stopping if you have to emergency stop. In fact on a lot of bikes 2 is not enough either. Older bikes with less than new brakes will usually require 4 fingers.

On the race track when you know how much you have to brake for a particular corner then you can tailor this. On the road if you are covering your brakes or using 2 fingers ask yourself this.

If someone said brake as quick as a clone of yourself on the same bike & the shortest stop will avoid a car, would you still use 2 fingers?

Some new bikes it won’t matter. But older ones it probably will.

Try braking with 2 fingers & changing to 4 mid stream. It’s pretty hard. On the road I do use 2 fingers often but only if I am confident I will be only adjusting speed & not required to perform a stop.

Are we far enough off the thread yet?

From what i have read he's trying to improve his riding skills.

If you using more than 2 fingers, you have brake probs.

It's obvious from his post he's starting to ride harder. You just don't have enough feel using 4 fingers, your reaction time is to slow if you lose the front, as well as other disavantages like slow downshifts.

When i think about it's quite a scary thought using 4 fingers and riding hard.

[Artifice]

Actually i did break my bike changing down without blipping.
lost second gear for a few months till i got it sorted out. stuffed up the selector and not sure about the cogs. i still just dump her down the gears and let the read end go all squirrelly (shake that ass) lol. i gotta learn to do it right i guess

[TwoSeven]

I dont blip, learned it years ago but find it a wasted effort for my style of riding and I think it slows my gear changes down more than I like.

Dont really suffer the funny back end problem, its just a matter of knowing how to feel the engine with the clutch (inline 4 technique) and using more/less brake. Since I only downshift when the bike is generally upright I cant see the problem with a bit of movement anyhow.

Seems to me that blipping may have been some technique that came out of the US superbike schools - probably why the aussies and yanks like it so much. Maybe it might be a two smoke style as well. But I have no interest in those machines these days

[bluninja]

Don't you just brake till you are slowed down enough and then do a block change down to the right gear to go through the corner ? If you are slowed to the right speed before changing down blipping shouldn't matter much.

As for slipper clutches......you can still lock up if you do it visciously enough but if you don't have one you can dip the clutcj slightly to get a similar effect.

[F5 Dave]

From what i have read he's trying to improve his riding skills.

If you using more than 2 fingers, you have brake probs.

It's obvious from his post he's starting to ride harder. You just don't have enough feel using 4 fingers, your reaction time is to slow if you lose the front, as well as other disavantages like slow downshifts.

When i think about it's quite a scary thought using 4 fingers and riding hard.

With a newish bike it is easy to be ‘high & mighty’ about brake performance, but the fact remains many older bikes will still stop better with 4 fingers.

As for ‘feel’ when you have heaps of power then yes 2 fingers is probably the best, but when you don’t have heaps of power then more fingers are required so you aren’t just yanking the brake as hard as you can. As for being 'Scary' using 4 fingers, only if you haven't practised. Lot more scary if the bike is not capable of stopping full effort with 2 fingers & that is what you are trying to use. Or maybe everyone should just fit a Brembo goldline set to their old bikes? Speedpro, the quip about 6 or 7 fingers:

The 3rd line I disagree with.

When you are matching the revs to the gear ratio, if you ask too much by dropping the gears too fast you will encounter gear ‘overlock’. I remember an experiment in mechanical lab where you could drive the big sprocket with the small one as fast as you could, but if you did it the other way the small sprocket would be going hyper speed & the gears locked up, it just got stiff to turn any faster than it wanted.

This is the same thing & will cause stress on the teeth. Also your engine is not a brake. Driving the revs past redline esp with a closed throttle (no cushioning gas as the pistons are forced past TDC) then engine damage is possible.

As in a recent post about covering clutches I said I often go down several gears at a time when racing & braking heavily for a hairpin. I will only part let the clutch out until the speed has dropped enough for the engine to match the gearing & it can be fully released. I certainly don’t do this on the road

[Motu]

Seems to me that blipping may have been some technique that came out of the US superbike schools - probably why the aussies and yanks like it so much. Maybe it might be a two smoke style as well. But I have no interest in those machines these days

It comes more from older bikes with slow 4 speed boxes,heavy flywheels and poor clutches - it was important to match engine,gear and road speed,kinda like driving a truck in those days.

[F5 Dave]

It comes more from older bikes with slow 4 speed boxes,heavy flywheels and poor clutches - it was important to match engine,gear and road speed,kinda like driving a truck in those days.

Ohh, Ohh, what’s the procedure to DoubleD’Clutch one of these bikes?

[magnum]

just as a suggestion dude, change down(& blip if You need to) Before you brake for the corner. Generally i believe in doing all your stuff before the corner. slow in, 'fast' out on the road my friend ...but hey what would i know.

same.use 2 fingys

[badlieutenant]

It comes more from older bikes with slow 4 speed boxes,heavy flywheels and poor clutches - it was important to match engine,gear and road speed,kinda like driving a truck in those days.

didnt even realise thats whats ive been doing all this time. My gear box is from a tractor im sure and real easy to find false neutrals. Thats about the time i learnt about matching revs to gear speed Is this something that honda does on most of its bikes ? agricultural gear boxes ?

[Skyryder]

If I have to brake and change down at the same time I use the back brake. This is prior to the corner so there is no problem with the entry. I just like both hands with a firm grip on the bars. I still think that there is too much technical stuff with cornering. Contol the entry and control the exit, just take a line and go for it.

Skyryder

[Motu]

Ohh, Ohh, what’s the procedure to DoubleD’Clutch one of these bikes?

F'sure,f'sure laddie - my 54 BSA I rode through the 70s was originaly a 650 twin and so had a wide ratio box,this was not much of a problem with the OHV singles I ran in it,they were all hotted up with cams and pistons etc - but when I put the 500cc side valve into it,with a whole 13 hp,it soon became something I had to ride around.The gap from 2nd to 3rd was huge,as well as having less HP,the sidevalve was down a couple of thousand rpm - every morning I had to go from 2nd to 3rd on a hill....I would rev the shit out of the old thing,then pull in the clutch,feeling each dog slowly going past....at the same time with my right hand I would move the advance lever back to half retard,the rev drop was too great to allow the motor to run full advance...when I felt the dogs running slow enough I would drop into gear and slog up the hill,bringing the advance up as the revs climbed - a different world eh? I could of put my 350 gearbox into it,they had closer gears,but...well,I never got around to it.This different ratios thing still goes on - my XT400E has closer ratios than the XT600E,the smaller motor can't pull the wide ratios.

My XLV750 has a slow box and massive engine braking,I have to get it just right or I have a big step out on corner entry - in the wet or other slippery conditions I often change down on corner exit,going around in a higher gear,then feeding revs in as I let out the clutch...it's all about keeping up speed and being smooth.

[speedpro]

The fact is that motorcycle gearboxes are constant mesh type with dogs that engage and disengage. Anyone with any mechanical sympathy will blip the throttle. I've got two bikes, one is a lumbering old 4-stroke whose crank alone weighs 18kilos. You have to blip for downchanges or you will have problems with the rear wheel hopping and sliding. The other bike is a 100cc bucket with a very light crank assembly and a close ratio box and you have to blip this when downchanging or you will have problems as well. As F5 says, sometimes you shift down so fast even with blipping the throttle the crank still can't change speed fast enough to match the speed in the new gear and you need to be careful when releasing the clutch. I'm reasonably sure that even on the little bike I would crash if I didn't blip the throttle, it's a definite on the big one.

I think it's a good thing to do. The back-torque limiters built into modern bike clutches means you can get away with not doing it but the stress is still there in the gearbox and to a lesser extent at the tyre.

[Bob]

As you're trying this for the first time, why not separate the two processes to begin with?

If you're at the right revs (we had a conversation about this a while back and the consensus seemed to be ride at about 2/3rds of your rev range) then blipping the throttle and using the engine braking will be fine, so no need to haul on that lever. Most of the time in normal/commuter riding I don't need the brakes at all. Very useful skill for getting tailgaters off your back as well!

Once the idea of blipping for downchanges is firmly in your head, then you can work on brake and blip (best practiced at slow speeds, often when you've been braking to stop and want to blip from 2nd to 1st).

Then when you've got this set of actions down, then you should be able to brake and blip at higher speeds.

Also, as someone else said, worry about sorting out your lines, rather than trying out late braking at this stage. Personally, I can't be bothered with late braking (especially on the road). I'd rather get all that braking and slowing down stuff out of the way, then concentrate on my line into the bend... as has been said here, the "Slow in, Fast out" maxim applies.

No matter what anyone says about Keith Code, his idea of separating out the various sections of taking a corner, practicing each one and then putting them together is an excellent one. I wonder if you're trying to throw everything together (including trying to brake late into a bend) and suffering as a result of 'Too many things to think about' Syndrome?