Downshifting???

[Dawg68]

Peck (Vale) and I swapped bikes on the Hyway to Esk when my Rocket had about 5000k's on it. I was following him on on his Fatboy that had about 140000k's on it. We caught a car doing about 130kph he just opened the throttle on the Roadster in top gear and was gone. When we got to Esk pub he couldn't stop talking about how he was doing 190kph by the time he got past the car.

That's what prompted me to write this thread. On the rocket I see no advantage to downshifting. This fat bottom girl just goes.

 

[Gregger]

And goes and goes and goes. With my America, I'd downshift sometime 2 gears to get into the power band to pass quick. With the Rocket, just role it on in high gear.

The Rocket has more torque idling, than my America at any rpm..... Love this beast!

 

[Jeff Cameron]

The Rocket has made me very lazy with my gear shift...

 

[Zen2osho]

Good day all;
Forgive me in advance if this seems like a dumb question.
If the R3R produces 147ft-lbs of torque @ 2500 rpm. On the highway @ 100kmh the tach reads aproximatly 2250rpm. With a slight twist of the throttle I'm over 2500rpm accelerating quickly. Is there a reason to downshift to 4th to pass? Or am I looking at this wrong, is it peak HP I'm trying to achieve by downshifting which is at 5750 rpm?

All this is with respect to a stock bike.

Thanks

Me too have this doubt in Mind, though the rocket can move in 5th in your case , the sound the engine makes in such situation is not very encouraging!! Also in my case I am on 5th only after 110kmph or 120kmph in case of city riding!

 

[Gregger]

My chums think the sound the Rocket makes in a 5th gear role on is awesome. It doesn't just convert fuel to noise like the fuel converting Harleys........ but to speed.

If your engine doesn't sound very encouraging......get some pipes and bring it to life!

 

[Torque addict]

My understanding is that;

Power is the rate at which work is done, where Torque is the amount of force applied: therefore

Power = how many bangs there are (RPM)
Torque = how big are the bangs are

Power therefore is important if you want to get past that car fast, but the advantage of torque is that you don't necessarily have to downshift because HP = Torque x RPM

A low torque engine requires high RPM. The Rocket doesn't

Well said.

And while we're discussing it there's really no reason to use 1st gear either. The Rocket pulls away from a stop in 2nd just fine. If you want to accelerate off the line sure, use 1st but most of the time I just use second.

 

[CanberraR3]

"engine doesn't sound encouraging". Love it.
My problem is my engine sounds too encouraging.