- Dec 23, 2019
I've seen a thread or two about the gearbox on the 650s being a little choosey about shifting technique, and I've definitely been having issues.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm an inexperienced rider and the only bike I've ridden apart from my 2019 CB650R was a Kawasaki ER6N with a gearbox that felt like it was filled with chowder by comparison. Never had any issues on that bike though.
I've been having a lot of hard shifts, clunks, and gear lever getting stuck half-way's.
I've made a habit of slightly preloading the shifter, then really giving it a good push all the way up once I feel the clutch disengage. This definitely helped, but I'm still having a hard time getting it consistent. Two-finger clutching also helped, but I can't pull it off with the stock lever without squishing my two remaining knuckles every time.
I know for a fact that my technique is still bad, when not paying attention I tend to release the clutch too quickly and I can physically hear the dog gears banging back and forth into each other as the transmission rapidly switches from engine braking back to powering the rear wheel in a split second.
But the one issue I can't find an explanation for is the amount of times I get stuck in neutral going from first to second. It happens almost every day, and it's definitely not due to a lazy shift. I'll push the lever all the way up, full-stop, very deliberately (because I'm already expecting it) and while most of the time it will go into second, other times it just won't go past neutral. There's a hard stop and it will only go into second with a bang (similar to going from neutral to first at a stop) after releasing the lever and re-trying.
After a few dozen embarrassing accidental rev-bombs, shifting from first to second now is something I find myself being constantly mindful of, which just isn't very fun.
Has anyone else been having this kind of issue?
Is there some trick or technique I'm missing? I'm beginning to worry that my rough-beginner-shifting may have damaged my gearbox.
Let me preface this by saying that I'm an inexperienced rider and the only bike I've ridden apart from my 2019 CB650R was a Kawasaki ER6N with a gearbox that felt like it was filled with chowder by comparison. Never had any issues on that bike though.
I've been having a lot of hard shifts, clunks, and gear lever getting stuck half-way's.
I've made a habit of slightly preloading the shifter, then really giving it a good push all the way up once I feel the clutch disengage. This definitely helped, but I'm still having a hard time getting it consistent. Two-finger clutching also helped, but I can't pull it off with the stock lever without squishing my two remaining knuckles every time.
I know for a fact that my technique is still bad, when not paying attention I tend to release the clutch too quickly and I can physically hear the dog gears banging back and forth into each other as the transmission rapidly switches from engine braking back to powering the rear wheel in a split second.
But the one issue I can't find an explanation for is the amount of times I get stuck in neutral going from first to second. It happens almost every day, and it's definitely not due to a lazy shift. I'll push the lever all the way up, full-stop, very deliberately (because I'm already expecting it) and while most of the time it will go into second, other times it just won't go past neutral. There's a hard stop and it will only go into second with a bang (similar to going from neutral to first at a stop) after releasing the lever and re-trying.
After a few dozen embarrassing accidental rev-bombs, shifting from first to second now is something I find myself being constantly mindful of, which just isn't very fun.
Has anyone else been having this kind of issue?
Is there some trick or technique I'm missing? I'm beginning to worry that my rough-beginner-shifting may have damaged my gearbox.
