Hi again people. I wish my other post wasn't erased, but I have one more question. I have a kx125, and I noticed that some people hold the clutch in in corners, then slowly release it and give it a lot of throttle on the exit, while other people constantly tap the clutch. The guy on the video that was tapping it seemed to be smoother and faster, so I was wondering if I should keep tapping it like him, or hold it in in the corners. I tried holding it in then releasing it the last time I was on the track, and it stopped the bogging but slowed me down. It seems smarter to just keep tapping it. SO WHAT THE HECK SHOULD I DOOOOO!

Feather. Keep it pinned and control the power with the clutch. I think.haha

the fast guy is probably slipping the clutch to allow the bike to rev up a little bit in order to keep it in the power.

You only need to feather the clutch when you want to build up more power (RPMs) On the flip side, if you're in the correct gear out of the turn, then you don't need to feather the clutch, because the correct gearing is supplying the perfect amount of power at the time. Make sense? If you come out of the turn in 3rd when you would have more power in 2nd, THEN you feather the clutch to build up the RPM's to get up to speed. This way you don't have to make the shift and you're already in the higher gear.

BTW, this is the beginning of KX910's old thread, remember the threads on this forum are now a week old... when it says "yesterday" that actually means Sunday the 8th. We already spent the whole week discussing this with him on the old forum.

Oh well the title said "again" so I figured he made another? No?

tye1138, on 14 January 2012 - 03:12 PM, said:

Actually, This was something I ment to ask on my previous thread. I wanted to be absolutely sure If I could feather the clutch all the time. I don't want to be doing the wrong thing and waste my time at the track!

THANKS EVERYONE! i love this website it's helped me A LOT.

Good, that's what it for.

Ohh tapping vs grabbing the clutch. The pro's all tap, nobody grabs the clutch and pulls it in, IDK where you're seeing that. If you ARE seeing that, it could just be their engagement point is screwed up and they need to pul it all the way in to get the clutch disengaged enough. My left hand has had some major re-construction surgery done on it, so I have a hydraulic clutch (comes with all modern KTM's) which is so light, even my crippled hand can work it subtly and smoothly.

I find that there are some corners where I need to slip and others where all I need to do is tap the clutch. It depends on how far I am from the meat of the power and if a shift will mess things up on the exit. There was one corner that I only needed to tap the clutch in second but shifting to third right before the jump wasn't working even though I can shift really quick. The next lap I took the corner in third and slipped the clutch and cleared it easy. Since I got my YZ250 I find myself slipping the clutch a lot more. It is geared a lot higher than my 125 was though.

Ih8Hondas, on 15 January 2012 - 11:35 AM, said:

Ok, ya see, that's where I keep getting confused. The definition of slipping and feathering is the same thing, so what the heck is the difference? People keep saying they slip the clutch, but It seems like the same thing as feathering.No one can give me a different definition, so I can't figure this out. What's the difference?

kx910, on 13 January 2012 - 11:43 PM, said:

If feathering the clutch is slowing you down, you aren't doing it right. You need to work on gear selection and clutch control.

I'm a terrible clutch abuser, but I find that it makes me much faster to simply whack the throttle open in turns and control the power to the wheel with the clutch. That allows me to keep the engine spinning in the meat of the power while still keeping the front end down and the rear tire hooked up.

kx910, on 15 January 2012 - 01:02 PM, said:

Slipping is when you're in the engagement point of the clutch and your "slipping" the clutch without feathering.

Feathering is when your just tapping the clutch to generate a little bit of slipping action.

You will feather the clutch to generate drive out of a corner. You will slip the clutch on the start of a race OR if you make a big mistake during a race and need to generate a whole bunch of drive.

I think the definition of slipping and feathering may be different depending on where you're from. I always used them interchangeably. Tye's definition of feathering is what I call whacking or tapping the clutch.

They are both the same!!! The whole difference is with "slipping" people are talking about just easing it right out of the fricting point. The opposite of this would be when you POP the clutch, and just completely let go of the lever. People POP the clutch to do wheelies and such.

Feathering is the same thing (being very slight with the friction point) except feathering is referring more to when you find the friction point in the clutch and you are just slightly engaging and disengaging the clutch aka power to the rear wheel. So feathering is very slight also, but it's more in and out in and out, to generate power through RPM's and provide traction. Again, the whole point here is you are engaging and disengaging power to the real wheel very quickly so it doesn't spin which = Traction.

These techniques can be the major difference in corner exiting speed, and jumping (out of a corner) speed. Let me know if that helped you.

OK I produced a lil clutch video. Sadly, after I shot this one clip, the stupid battery in the camera died, so I didn't get a real hot lap. But it at least shows you what I'm doing.

http://www.tye1138.c...tuff/clutch.mp4

tye1138, on 20 January 2012 - 11:53 AM, said:

Thats a really cool view.
To me feather is disengaging the clutch just enough to lessen the load that is being transferred to the engine so that it can gain rpms quicker. Drive to the rear wheel is lessened, but not lost, so the bike will still be accelerating. Sometimes a feather is a longer more 'pronounced' slip, other times it is repeated feathering like in tye's vid.