March 11th, 2013
It doesn’t matter if its a 5 speed or a 6 speed box, the 3rd gear is the most hardworking gear of them all. Its a no frills, no drama entity. You ask and it delivers, instantly... smoothly. No matter how hard you open the throttle, it is always a surge, without any surprises; like a well co ordinated drum roll.
The 1st gear in any bike is too jittery and nervous. Its as though some one lit up a firework up its rear side. Should you rev it too high and slot second it feels like a huge stack of china came crashing down. God forbid, but should the clutch slip between neutral and 2nd during that maneuver, the noise of grinding nails will haunt you for days.
The 2nd gear exists only for 2 reasons. 1. to bear the brunt of all that torque that the first dumped on it and 2. act as bridge between the scared child and the working horse. I call it the abused one.
The 3rd gear doesn’t complain. No matter where you start or where you end in the rev band, it does one thing and one thing only. PULL!! And for that reason, I really love the 3rd gear.
At 5000 rpm in 3rd gear, the dual cams on my CB, let out a high pitch whine like a banshee and I could meditate to that sound for hours. When the VFR switches from 2 to 4 valves in 3rd its as though a turbocharger kicked in without lag and the revs climb like a lizard on a wall.
Top gears is most bikes are the laziest if you ask me. Trying to open the throttle in 5th or 6th when you are cruising, is like trying to roll over a dead seal.
On the other hand, drop a couple of cogs to 3rd and give it the beans and boy does it reward you.
Not just in a straight line, there is something incredibly satisfying about coming out of a 30-40 mph corner in 3rd and opening up the taps. Try doing it in 1st or 2nd, and it feels like it wants to chew you and spit you out.
I think we give too much credit to top speed as a measure of bragging. Truth be told, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to test the top speed of a machine. But over 55% of the time we have an opportunity to push our bikes in 3rd gear.
The next time you have one of those arguments over a pint of beer, ask about the time it takes to go from 40 to 60mph or 50 to 70mph in 3rd gear. It doesn’t matter if you win or lose that argument, because the next time you climb on your bike, you are going to try it and its gonna make you giggle like a 16 year old girl. And the best part; not only can you try it as many time as you want, you are not going to piss off the rozzers.. ;)
So be it straight line acceleration to over take that slow moving moron or coming out of a corner on Hw 35, the 3rd gear is there to answer the call all the time, everytime.
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