Clutch when shifting?

Depends. At slower speeds and lower rpm's, I use the clutch. When I'm out on a spirited ride, I use clutch between 1st and 2nd and then not again until I'm down shifting.
 
i've been testing different times to clutch and not clutch. i also tend to only go clutchless when upshifting. downshifting is a little shady, especially in turns. engine break kicks in too hard and the back tire moves
 
Every time. Even on my SV650 on the track. I see no reason why to not use the clutch. I got really smooth at clutchless upshifting, but never really saw the advantage and gave up on it. Thinking to myself; "Did I really need to save that .01 of a second?"

dp
 
I'm kinda in the same boat. The only reason I even tried learning clutchless shifting is for those times when you really don't want to take fingers off of the handlebar. Example - coming into a turn hot (which I know, shouldn't happen, but it does) - you want to get to a lower gear to maintain torque, but don't want to fidget with your grips and lose any amount of control. Maybe there's not point though, as you mentioned (especially with the violent reaction from the engine break).
 
To be fair to the clutchless concept;

I've had clutch cables break and it was nice to have an idea on how to make the bike shift in the least violent manner...

But at the end of the day, I'd rather put the least amount of wear on my bike's and I feel that using the clutch facilitates my goal. Get a few clutchless shifts wrong, and it feels like you are doing a lot of unnecessary damage to the motors innerds...

dp
 
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