When on road(not track) what revs should you change gears?

reenandpert said:

I mean just riding around the city Ive been changing up between 3-5k, does this seem about right?
Cheers,
TIM

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I would think 3000RPM is too low.
Shift when you're far enough into the power to not drop below it in the higher gear.
I rarely get above third gear around town on any of my bikes or cars. If I can get up to about 80kph I'll grab fourth. I never use sixth on the bikes or fifth in the cars unless I'm out on a highway somewhere.

dicknose said:

That only happens if you shift at revs above max power.

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That would perhaps be so if I'd been talking about shifting at _peak_ power which I clearly wasn't.
If it starts making usable power at 4000RPM and you shift from first to second at 4500 you'll drop below the 4000RPM point and out of the usable power. If usable power starts at 4000RPM start shifting around 5500RPM. As you go up the gearbox the ratios get closer together so you can shift sooner.

dicknose said:

Ok - what was the "it" you were talking about??

Shift when you're far enough into the power to not drop below it in the higher gear.

I read the sentence to mean "it" was the power in the current gear (seing that power was the last thing mentioned in the sentance)
In which case you would have to be above max revs.

Im guessing from your next posts that "it" is some unspecified min amount of power.

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"It" refers to the power referred to earlier in the sentence - I think it's a standard English usage of the word.
I can't see how you have a problem understanding it. Why would max revs or max power have anything to do with what I stated?

My usage of "power" does not refer to a fixed point in the rev range.
For your reading of it perhaps instead of "below" I should have used "out of" or "off the bottom of" the power?

setanta said:

Funny I never think about it

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I've been thinking about it more since this thread
I keep the ZX6R around 6000RPM.

setanta said:

I've got this picture in my head of me staring at the rev counter to see when and at what just as I run into the arse of a van :idunno:

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I tend to see the instruments periferally
Years ago if somebody had asked me if I use the tach on the track I'd have said no. Since racing without it though I've discovered that I do seem to keep an awareness of where my revs are and miss having a tach on the track. The instruments just seem to get added to my general "situational awareness" without really being conscious of them.

At Philip Island they won't let you run cameras because they have commercial contracts so I spent one session trying to remember my tach highs and lows into and through the apexes of all the turns - not something I ever want to do again