Shifting Gears

& Improving Your Life

One down and Four (or Five) Up. Let off the throttle, pull in the clutch, shift into gear, let the clutch out, feel the transmission & engine engage, and back on the throttle.

Go, go, GO!! Go farther. Go faster!! Go till you can’t anymore, rest and repeat. Always in a hurry to do it again… and again… and again.

Motorcycling brings such joy to myself and many others who ride!! It also brings us many life lessons if we listen to them.

Without the Transmission, you’re going NOWHERE!!

Carroll Shelby (race car driver & automotive engineer best known for improving on the Ford Mustang sport coup) once said, “There is never enough horsepower… just not enough traction.”

Translation? You can have all the “drive” (or passion or commitment - whatever you’d like to call it) you want. But, if you don’t have a way to put the power to the pavement, you’re gonna be standing still.

Nowhere can also be ‘now here.’

Growing up, my first car was a 1982 Ford Escort… with 4-cylinders and a manual transmission. Prior to that, I had ONE lesson on how to drive a stick -thanks to my best friend Kim & her Ford Ranger. (If you haven’t guessed it already, I’m also a Ford Girl!)

My Dad bought that car for me off the Lemon Lot at Edwards Air Force Base, gave me a quick lesson as he drove it from the lot back to his office, and then gave me the keys and had me figure it out from there.

It took awhile for me to get the rhythm… to feel when the transmission took hold and to give the engine enough gas so it wouldn’t stall, but not so much as to send it off flying into the car in front of me!

Years later in my Rider’s Edge Class (the Basic Riders Course as it was called back then) at Harley-Davidson of Atlanta, I learned to ‘duck-walk’ a Buell Blast across the tarmac, then pick my feet up, then shift into second gear.

Just like life, I was on my way!!

Getting your Motorcycle License makes you a better Driver!

Of course, these days you’re hard pressed to find a manual shift car at all. It used to be that you’d pay extra for an automatic transmission and now it’s the other way round!

More & more I’ve heard people asking when will Harley make an automatic transmission motorcycle… smh. Of course, Honda has 'DCT - their version. I haven’t ridden one, so cannot comment as to how it feels to ride. And, if you haven’t ridden one, Harley’s LiveWire Electric Motorcycle doesn’t shift at all - just twist the throttle and GO!!

All that said, it seems lots of people prefer the convenience of having the vehicle’s “brain” gage when the RPMs are enough to warrant changing gears. In other words, the convenience of not thinking… to let a machine do it for you. Trading their comfort for wisdom.

What was wrong with the “pause”? Was it really that much work?? Sure, we’re gaining comfort and the computers in today’s cars can change gears much more efficiently. So, I guess there’s fuel consumption to factor in as well.

And there’s also the acceleration… the “going, going & going” that is going on. Harley-Davidson (and other Motorcycle manufacturers) keeps upping the engine size of their bikes. My first Harley was a 2004 Dyna Super Glide with a 5-speed transmission and a 88 cubic inch engine. My bike now is a 2018 Heritage that has a 6-speed transmission, cruise control and a 114ci Milwaukee-Eight motor. The biggest motor you can get in a Harley today is a massive 121ci in their CVO bikes!!

Now & then I like comparing the two bikes… each have their own + & -

Except we can’t just keep ‘going, going, going’!

To every up there is a down. A Ying to Yang. Darkness & the Light.

We must remember to “down-shift” -especially going into the corner (whether you’re on a bike or in a car). Otherwise the forces of the Universe are going to throw our ass right off the road!!

Slow down. Down-shift again. Get low. Go slow.

Take a breath and enjoy the “Nowhere”… make that the “Here & Now.”

See what I did there??