Slipper Clutch - Downshifting technique | GTAMotorcycle.com

Slipper Clutch - Downshifting technique

justride

Well-known member
What techniques do use if you want to down shift a least 2 gears quickly. 5th to 3rd, 4th to 2nd etc. when you bike is equipped with a slipper clutch?
Do you blip the throttle once and gear down/ clutch and gear down / clutch while braking?
Or blip the throttle once and gear down from 5th to 3rd and clutch once while braking?
At Grand Bend coming down the straight to right hand corner I can't seem to blip and downshift 2 gears quickly without red lining ( maybe I need to apply more brake ?)

Basically, I need to gear down(slow down) quickly and smoothly as possible and be in the right RPM when its time to accelerate

Have a 2015 R6 without auto blip
 
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At Grand Bend coming down the straight to right hand corner I can't seem to blip and downshift 2 gears quickly without red lining ( maybe I need to apply more brake ?)

No difference slipper clutch or otherwise. Two complete separate gearchanges, each with its own simultaneous clutch-pull/throttle-blip/gearchange and both simultaneous with braking (not before!). Over-revving after downshifts means you are downshifting too soon (or not spacing them apart enough). If you need two downshfts there, delay the second downshift well into the braking zone and complete it just before your turn-in point.
 
You could try playing with sprockets and gear it so you only have to downshift once or you drop two gears but the rpms will not hit redline.
Changing gearing will effect all your shift points at all other corners, so you need to think about the whole track. Usually you always end up with one corner that isn't perfect but doable and costs you the least amount of time.
 
I sometimes go 6th to 3rd depending on the layout. Pull in the clutch, click down twice, let the clutch lever out and the slipper works it's magic. Obivously I'm on the brakes at the same time so the speed should match the gear.

If I drop 3 gears the rear tends to get a bit more squirrelly.
 
I thought you didn't need to blip/
I sometimes go 6th to 3rd depending on the layout. Pull in the clutch, click down twice, let the clutch lever out and the slipper works it's magic. Obivously I'm on the brakes at the same time so the speed should match the gear.

If I drop 3 gears the rear tends to get a bit more squirrelly.

I've never had a slipper, but this is how I understood them to work - no rev-matching required, otherwise you might as well have a standard clutch and get better engine braking (which I've heard some people prefer).
 
I thought you didn't need to blip/


I've never had a slipper, but this is how I understood them to work - no rev-matching required, otherwise you might as well have a standard clutch and get better engine braking (which I've heard some people prefer).
I dont do track. I blip with a slipper. Saves some wear, smoother and better practice imo. The slipper is there to save me if I screw things up a little. Slipper is more to keep the rear wheel from locking up/hopping due to high engine braking and/or light load on the rear tire than it is a substitute for matching engine speed to wheel speed.
 
Even with a slipper clutch, the engine still needs to be brought up to speed after the down-change, and if that's not coming from a throttle-blip (whether manual or auto-blip), it's coming from being back-driven by the rear wheel. The slipper-clutch just spreads that out a bit and avoids a big jolt. Whether you want that extra bit of braking from the rear wheel or not ... is why the top-level riders get paid the big bucks.
 
I dont do track. I blip with a slipper. Saves some wear, smoother and better practice imo. The slipper is there to save me if I screw things up a little. Slipper is more to keep the rear wheel from locking up/hopping due to high engine braking and/or light load on the rear tire than it is a substitute for matching engine speed to wheel speed.

I'd probably do the same, since I'm so used to it after all these years. Kind of like ABS... and traction control... and wheelie control... OK, don't get me started... too late! :confused:
 
I'd probably do the same, since I'm so used to it after all these years. Kind of like ABS... and traction control... and wheelie control... OK, don't get me started... too late! :confused:
Like the rest of them. I try not to use them but they might save me when I run out of talent or make a mistake.
 
When you say blip, do you actually mean blip, or just moving it to the position where it needs to be?
 
It is a quick blip to avoid a jolt in rear-wheel traction through the gearchange. Downshifting is done while braking for an upcoming corner ... the throttle remains shut after the initial rev-match is dealt with.
 
If your slipper clutch is adjusted properly, no need to touch the throttle. just bang down gears. Depending on situation, clutch in down 2 or 3 and release. or if time allows, a 1/2 release of lever between down shifts. Take barber T14 your knee is down and you need to drop a gear still while braking. A proper slipper you don't feel anything unsettling. So no need to throttle blip. Myself and a number of guys i know never have. If the bike is moving around, you have too much engine brake.
 
The rental S1000RR that I rode at Catalunya you just downshifted. No touching throttle or clutch lever, the bike sorts that out.

That's cheating. LOL
even middleweight nakeds have this now 😃
 
Like the rest of them. I try not to use them but they might save me when I run out of talent or make a mistake.
Odd, I'm definitely the younger rider here and I prefer carb bikes EXACTLY because of how raw and punishing they are if you make a mistake or run out of talent.

That blue bike in my avatar is a retired ex-HRC race bike from some historic class from the E. Coast, it had 17k punishing miles on it but was still in good shape when I got it.

I mainly bought it because it was already built for the track and tuned for our elevation by an ex AMA-racer that was humiliating guys with way newer liter bikes with 2x the HP in open class track days, and to be honest I had more respect for him riding that thing balls-out and sliding the rear out at Pikes Peak raceway or Highplains than seeing replays of his AMA days when he raced against some WSBK riders with all the fancy gadgets on thier bikes.

It started life as a basic CBR600 F4 then got lots of Vortex, HRC, Ohllins etc... parts, it was never fast by modern standards (even for a 600) but it was way more of a thrill than riding an ex AMA BMW S1000RR that I got to ride around Laguna Seca for a few laps and constantly kicked in with clutchless shifting, auto-blip, TC etc... even though it had nearly double the HP it felt muted.

That blue bike was unforgiving (I never named her, and it got sold for parts as I got an unrelated disk/spine injury and can't ride like or as often I used to) and made you accountable for every single move you made on it and that is why I like riding older bikes, my newest bike (fireblade) is from 2003 before all the gizmos took over and gives me a similar feeling to the blue bke but with more HP and torque.

I also feel the same way about cars, I can't stand the way throttle by wire cars with all the TC stuff react, it feels like a video game on a sim rather than a dangerous analogue machine demanding your respect and full attention if you want to take it to the edge (or slightly over) without getting hurt. It forces you to have to get into flow state with it if you want to really meld with it and get the most out of it.

This is why it's not surprising to me that so many sim racers without any real car experience can just jump into a newer 1000hp car with all that tech stuffed into them: its just a plug and play setup that really doesn't reflect talent so much as it does time spent on the simulator. And I say this as a person that spent 1000s of hours on Gran Turismo(s) before the Nismo GT academy made it a thing for this to take place as a kid and young adult. t

I call it the Playstation-ification of motorsports, which while not a bad thing in itself, it definitely marked a certain period of time in which you no longer had to feel what the car was capable of by taking it to it's limits, and possibly crashing, rather than just setting a track specific fuel map, TC setting, and engine braking bias and using throttle input while letting the ECU and engine mapping take over.

Granted this takes place in MotoGP now, too, but this differs in that they race with 350+hp bikes capable of 360kph that are simply not physically capable of being ridden without them by even the best in the World: see Dani Pedrosa's violent crash when his TC was cut.
 
I feel like there are driving/riding techniques that are eventually going to be lost due to technology.

Previously, we've talked about ABS doing away with the need to learn threshold braking - feeling the tires lose traction and letting off or pumping the brakes to regain traction. My last track bike was equipped with a slipper clutch, but I still found myself blipping the throttle on downshifts. I tracked my car a few times as well, and I also used to practice heel-toe downshifts when braking before a corner. Also learned double declutching, even though my car had synchromesh gears.

The blipping technique is a very satisfying feeling when you master it properly. It's a shame newer generations of riders/drivers will never get to experience it.
 
I'm going to change my answer on this after riding track again this weekend. I do pull in the clutch each gear I down shift and sort of half release it each time because other wise it doesn't seem to want to drop the gear. Once I've dropped the 3 gears then I fully release while trail braking. The times I tried keeping it pulled in and drop 3 gears I only ended up dropping 2.

Just ride your bike and see what works best.
 

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