- This topic has 9 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 15 years ago by mjolnir85.
Stop – start
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April 15, 2009 at 5:42 am #2707mjolnir85Participant
So, I got myself a bike, Ducati 695, used 07 model.
It’s like new, only 2100 kms, clean and well taken care of
never stunted, never dropped, never done any harm to (not even rain)On my second day of riding it, (tonight) I stalled 4 times in a row at a light.
Aside from being flabberghasted and embarassed, I was concerned.I wondered “is there a problem with the bike?”
and more importantly “am I screwing something up?”I have stalled before on an uphill stop-start but not 4 times in a row.
Another thing is, it’s not a “Choke” but something like it, and I didn’t give the bike
proper time to warm up, thinking I could ride with the “choke” “primer” perhaps?
engaged a little higher up.I am a new rider and so I think it mainly has to do with my control of the bike
but at the same time i am a little concerned. I am pretty confident the bike is
without fault, but even so how can I improve my stop-start?I usually roll the throttle lightly, then slowly release the cluth until i feel the bike pull
but this time, as I released the clutch to let the bike roll forward it lurched then stalled.
Was it because I didn’t let it warm up enough?Am I doing something wrong? Should I be concerned with the bike itself?
April 15, 2009 at 10:12 am #17769MunchParticipant2nd day of riding? Don’t think it’s really the bike. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said something towards your emotion when you stalled. Remember that you set the pace for your self. When you come to a stop give yourself that time to get your thoughts collected on what you need to be doing, not the “cool factor” or the expectations of the people behind you. The last thing you want to do is get rushed from self induced pressure. It’s actually good that you stalled instead of the alternative. I have seen beginners over compensate and almost have the bike leave them sanding at the stop light as it takes off in the wild blue.
Definitely give the bike time to warm up before initially taking off. After that the “choke” shouldn’t even be an issue. You should be able to close it and go. Practice your friction zone several times before each ride. Time to ROCK! in your drive way just let the clutch out slowly with a little throttle til it pulls you to the balls of your feet… squeeze the clutch back in rock back on your heels …. rinse and repeat. Give yourself time to get that muscle memory to set in. Don’t get in to much of a hurry and relax!April 15, 2009 at 12:08 pm #17770samgoodyParticipantThe Monster 695 is a fuel injected bike, and from what I understand there should be no “choke” like bikes with carburetors. I do know that some Monsters have a “fast idle” lever that raises the idle speed. Probably useful for getting the engine warmed up faster on cold mornings. If your bike came with an owner’s manual, then it should all be explained in there.
April 15, 2009 at 1:22 pm #17773Clay DowlingParticipantEspecially if you’re taking off while headed up hill, working the friction zone is important. There’s a respectable slope coming out of the local grocery store’s lot, and it’s tripped me up before. I’ve stalled it, and once I nearly came to grief when I let the clutch out just a little too far and came within a foot of blowing the turn right into the side of a chevy truck.
April 15, 2009 at 2:24 pm #17776bigguybbrParticipantI remember doing that. You stall at a light with people behind you durring your first few days of riding. You panic and try to get going too fast, you dump the clutch and stall out all over again. Next time just push your bike off to the side of the road, take a moment, RELAX, compose yourself, and try again. After a week or so, stalling out at lights will be a thing of the past.
A great parking lot drill to work on is the pause and go’s. You’ll learn it in MSF, but if you wanna practice, put the bike in first gear, start and get going. Then pull in the clutch and press on BOTH breaks and come to a stop without putting your feet on the ground, balance for a moment (keep your head up! it makes a big difference in your balance), and then ease out the clutch and get going again. You can do this again and again to help build that muscle memory and for me it was better than just rolling back and forth with my feet down.
It’s also a big help for traffic jams in states that don’t allow lane sharing.
April 15, 2009 at 3:05 pm #17777CandiceParticipantDefinitely good advice above – pull over and relax for a minute. Last season in my newness I kept running out of gas so I’d come to a stop light and then couldn’t figure out why my bike died and won’t start! OMG! I would totally start to panic, so pulling over and taking a deep breath allowed me to think, DAH, turn on your reserve and go to the gas station! I think your bike is probably fine, you just need to get a feel for it since it’s new for you. In the beginning I would give it some gas, release the clutch (slowly) and then I would stall because I wasn’t going fast enough.
April 15, 2009 at 3:26 pm #17779briderdtParticipantIt may be that you’re a little afraid of the bike’s power?
Here’s what she was doing: She’d get the bike running, put it in gear, rev it up a little bit, then start releasing the clutch. Didn’t matter how slowly she released the clutch, she wouldn’t give it more gas, so it would just start to move and then stall. Worst was anything with an upward slope (and we’re not talking anything steep at all).
April 15, 2009 at 5:58 pm #17785eternal05ParticipantThis may be completely unrelated to your problem, but a bike that’s not properly warmed up will feel underpowered sometimes. Even my Ninja 250R for instance, while being a carb-based bike (not fuel-injected like yours), normally gets launched on the flat at around 1,500 to 2000rpm if I’m feeling casual. When it’s warmed up, it has NO problem doing that. If the bike is cold, however, I have to launch at 3-3.5K rpm or the bike will die. The gixxer is fuel injected and doesn’t seem to have any issues like this, though I don’t tend to ride it in the cold.
In addition to the great feedback everybody else has given you with regard to practice, I’d also say that when the bike is cold, pay special attention to giving a bit more throttle and slower clutch feed. Do NOT idle the bike to warm it up. The moment it is ride-able (on a 40 degree day, it takes about 10 seconds of choke to get my Ninja read to go), ride it around casually (easy on the throttle, stay in low gears) until it warms up. It also goes without saying that you should avoid situations where you may need to dump the clutch or gas it up quickly as you may be unable to do so before the bike is “happy.”
To my choke-using brethren, this is a hotly-debated topic but my advice on the subject: use as little choke as possible! The idea is not to turn the choke on all the way and leave it for 10 minutes idling in your drive way until you can ride away. If the bike won’t start, give it the bare minimum amount of choke needed to get it to idle and wait just long enough that easing on the throttle won’t kill the bike. When you can roll on the throttle slowly without killing the engine (which like I said, is about 10-15 seconds for me even on near-freezing days), rev a bit higher than you normally would and slowly let out the clutch. As soon as you’re moving and applying enough throttle, you won’t need the choke anymore, so you can close it completely. Bikes (and cars) warm up MUCH faster under load, so it’ll be just a minute or two of riding around slowly before your bike will be warm enough to ride normally. Again, this depends on the bike. I hear that the remodeled Ninja 250s are particularly difficult to get going in the cold, but the recipe above works well for me.
April 15, 2009 at 6:56 pm #17787Clay DowlingParticipantin the cold. 5 to 10 minutes when the weather is near freezing to get to the point where it can take any load. And that sadly is a trait of the third generation magnas. But yes, once it can take the load, it responds much better to being in motion than to idling and warming.
April 15, 2009 at 7:44 pm #17790mjolnir85ParticipantThank you all, you have answered my doubts without question.
I think I may have been afraid of launching my bike and thus rolled too low on the RPM.
Plus, next time I will try and give the bike a little more time to warm up.
I was in a rush, and to be completely honest, even after the riding course, I am not nearly
confident enough in my skills as of yet.
However, the 695 has been very forgiving, though it is more power than I can fully handle as of yet.I will definitely give myself more room and time to practice.
Thanks all for your support and great input. -
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