If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

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If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by Standardshifter »

"But if you’re new to the joys of clutch/throttle coordination, the classes will not only induct you into the happy lot who reside within the Venn diagram of motorcycle and car enthusiasts, but it will also get you two-thirds of the way to learning how to drive stick in a car. "

https://jalopnik.com/if-you-want-to-lea ... 1846443222
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by Rope-Pusher »

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BvLtNBm1yyA[/youtube]

It's been a very long time since I've driven a motorcycle.....and I'd have to say I really didn't spend enough time on it to get to know what I was doing....but it seems to me that it was much more of a mystery as to what gear was engaged than it was when I was studying to be Amish in a car. I maybe didn't have to be very precise with clutch engagement on the bike....of course, I was off-road, so a little wheel spin probably masked a lot of abrupt clutch engagements.
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by IMBoring25 »

That sounds like a horrible idea. Maybe he's been at it long enough to have forgotten, but there's a lot of "there" there just in the balancing and the cornering and the dreaded U-turn box. Trying to grasp all that WHILE trying to learn what a clutch is...Wow.

The first thing my brother did was put me on his Virago, lean it at about a 10 degree angle, and let go. I managed to get it back upright and he said, "That's what it will be like if you stall it." Of course, that depends on how fast you're going, how upright it is, and the position of the steering when you stall it.

I don't understand the extra jarring he talks about from stalling a car and even if I did, that's preferable to the list of possible penalties for a mishandled clutch including broken legs and road rash. The BRC even has the tight turn from a stop exercise in it, which is begging for something dramatic to happen with a mishandled clutch. Our class had somebody lay one down pretty hard on the emergency lane change exercise. I can't imagine why you would subject yourself to all that just to learn clutch operation.
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by ClutchFork »

I learned on the creeper gear of the tow truck at the gasoline station I was pump jockying at. Also I had my '63 Chevy 3-on-the-tree for a while before I got my motorcycle. The motorcycle was easy. I never had a problem with clutching the motorcycle that would have caused me to dump the bike or anything like that. My bike was a 500 cc two-stroke, so maybe it was a little different. There was little engine braking in the two-stroke. I did once bog it and almost stall the engine while trying to high-tail it out from a stop sign when some big goon had jumped out of his car and lunged at me meaning to tear me limb from limb. He did pursue me down the road and would have run me over had he caught me.
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theholycow wrote:Why in the world would you even want to be as smooth as an automatic? Might as well just drive an automatic...
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by Rope-Pusher »

Did you live?
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by ClutchFork »

Rope-Pusher wrote: Thu Mar 18, 2021 12:03 pm Did you live?
I guess I did live. But probably only because I wised up and avoided getting into any more situations like that. There were a enough of them in my youth to last a lifetime. I am always reluctant to say too much about these events lest the other guy(s) somehow come across my post and still want retribution 40 years later. The less they know about me the better, like the carload of greasers chasing me down the road waving crowbars out the window after I did something they did not like.
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theholycow wrote:Why in the world would you even want to be as smooth as an automatic? Might as well just drive an automatic...
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Re: If You Want To Learn To Drive Stick, Just Learn How To Ride A Motorcycle

Post by potownrob »

inn deed seams like a roundabout whey to learn how to shift and werk the clutch, unless you plan to ride a bike off course. plus, a car and bike are not the same. just take an old beater car to a dead parking lot and have at it. :D
ClutchFork wrote:...So I started carrying a stick of firewood with me and that became my parking brake.
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