Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

hi all.

just got my first 600cc bike, just a question regarding the gears, is it normal to only use the first 3 gears in normal riding (70kms)
should i go higher and let it rev under 5000 rpm?

im so used to going from 1st-6th on my ninja250, feels weird..

Going too low and making the engine labour isn't a good thing. 70 kph you should be looking to be just grabbing 3rd for comfortable riding. Plus you have some power there to get you out of a bad situation if you need it.

Really depends on the bike. My bike is 2000 zx6, so has a bit more power down low compared to some newer bikes. I can do 3.5-4K quite comfortably. You'll know if the engine is labouring because the response will be quite sluggish and the engine note will change. Any revs above that will be fine for the engine. If it's a brand new engine then you want to go through the rev range (up to whatever the manufactuer said not to go over until a certain time, normally 1000 kms) and through all the gears. Other than that, whatever the bike feels comfortable with is fine. I use 4th for 70kph quite comfortably. My cruise revs are normally about 4.5-5.5k

i end up sitting in 6th mostly, and still have enough grunt as above, ive got the same bike too... tho really, 4th is prolly more ideal, in terms of sitting in a good part of the torqueband...