“Dear Dr. Buzz, a case in point was last years death of a motorcyclist in the city of Victoria B.C.due to having his bike in neutral at a traffic light. As the lights turned red, a large dump truck waited at the front of the line. A motorcyclist seeing an opportunity to get ahead of the crowd, filtered between the line of waiting vehicles and stopped immediately ahead of the dump truck with his bike in neutral, the driver of the truck could not see him. The truck driver anticipated the green as most commercial drivers in the city do, floored it as soon as the light went green and ran over the motorcyclist before he had a chance to get in gear and killed him instantly. I ride a 250cc scooter, but took a motorcycle driving course and we were told NEVER to leave our bikes in neutral at a stop sign or traffic light. Hope this helps, enjoy your articles.”

With that said, some argument could be made that the ‘in first gear at the light” is a side effect of the MSF mantra of always matching engine and bike speed with downshifting and engine braking (4T only please) along with the desire to keep the time spent with new students hunting for neutral all the time. Additionally, the hand-shifted scooter places your hand on the clutch in order to shift, whereas a bike, with a foot gear selector, it is easier to accidentally engage gears without clutching and dumping the rider.

-Luigi

first is familiarity with the light. as a lot of us in urban areas know, light times can range from seconds to minutes, so application of holding in the clutch or dropping into neutral depends largely on wait time.

if i’m rolling into a light that i have seen turn red, i generally drop into neutral. adjust, stretch, whatever, all while keeping an eye on the moving traffics light. once they go to yellow, i go into gear.

if i’m coming up to a light that i don’t know how long it’s been red, i stay in gear with the clutch pulled in.

if only we had lights like in europe where you get a “yellow” before it turns green….

I’m no expert, but I do commute regularly to DC from suburban Maryland on a PX, and have thought about this issue many times while sitting in traffic.

As one of the prior posters suggested, I downshift with the clutch pulled in as speed decreases, for example when approaching a stop, so that the gear is appropriate for the current speed of the scooter. So I roll to a stop in first gear, with the clutch pulled in. At that point, it seems possible to shift between first gear and neutral and back without any of the characteristic cruciform “clunk” which occurs if you go from higher gears to neutral to frist gear.

When I was just learning to ride, I found this article, which I’m sure is familiar to many 2strokebuzz readers and which some kind folks on Modern Vespa pointed out to me, very helpful as it explained the “clunk”: http://www.bajajusa.com/Gentle%20art%20of%20shifting.htm

Also, when taking the MSF course in Maryland, we were taught to always stay in gear at a stop, for the reasons cited above, namely to be able to pull away quickly in an emergency. I have come to disregard that advice on my regular commute. I figure wearing a high-viz vest is better protection against being rear-ended than scooting into an intersection filled with traffic.

Thanks,

-matteo

Holding both brakes down while engaging first gear helps, for the same reason holding the brake when shifting from park (or neutral) into gear is recommended when shifting the automatic transmission in a car.

When you shift down to first gear at a slow road speed, the gear speed and road speed are closely matched or often perfectly matched, minimizing or eliminating the impact of the gears coming together. A perfect sync condition like that can’t happen once the bike is stationary, because there is no way to match zero road speed with the speed of a running engine .

This is the same benefit as double-clutching, but you’re achieving the gear and road speed match by timing your shift into first right before you stop (instead of having to rev the engine as you do in higher gears, though you could do that if you wanted to shift into first at an unusually high road speed).

If you are weighing the costs of transmission and shift cable wear against transmission wear, opt to wear your clutch. It’s considered a wear item and is fairly cheap to replace; your transmission isn’t.

HOLDING THE CLUTCH would put marginally more stress on the clutch plates and cable, but

SITTING IN NEUTRAL would cause a little more wear and tear on the transmission and shift cables

I think the impact in both cases would be pretty negligible over usual wear, even over time, and they balance each other out, so I didn’t even bring it up, or we’d end up talking about getting flat spots on your tires from sitting too still at a light.

That said cagers often don’t see you I have ridden in the meat wagon because of that. That hit was a T-bone Two days in the hospital concussion the shoulder never healed and so on. This has happened to many others. I have been struck from behind at a stop light no injures and just needed to replace the rear fender. It happened when I was trying to turn right on red and so was the car behind me. I was watching for cross traffic and so was she.

Both times young drivers. I would not shift out of first until there is a cage stopped behind me. YMMV

Mike in Flossmoor