trusted article very quickly . With around 500km in full tour mode completed I was starting to get to grips with it . Did I miss the clutch ? Not really , no . I know , I ’ m as surprised to write that as you may be to read it . Although occasionally I like to coast along with my clutch in , as I contemplate a change of direction or approaching a low speed area for example , it was not a deal breaker . I ’ d go so far as to say that if I had to make a choice of DCT or not DCT at this point , I ’ d take the DCT . This is the opposite of my intuition at the start of this story .
THE DIFFICULTIES However , it is in the low speed stuff where some difficulties arise . When you wish to go very slowly and creep over stuff , the bike has either ‘ drive ’ or ‘ not drive ’, it ’ s linear and no amount of map changing and D , S1 , 2 or 3 makes any difference at these low crawling speeds when negotiating over rocks and stones and waterways . I did miss the slip action of a clutch . However , the ‘ brain ’ of this DCT is an astounding piece of engineering , and beyond my meagre skills to interpret , except by experience . In riding , I attempted to find the rev point at which each step of the Drive changed gear - again this was not straight-forward . In Tour Mode , I selected D for drive and the gear changes kicked in at very low revs , around 1800 to 2000rpm before changing up . In S1 the box changed up at 2000 , in S2 at 2500 , and in S3 at 3000 , however these were all at speeds below 50km / h . Above that , there appears to be a sliding scale , with greater revs allowed before change ups . I found it impossible to ascertain what drove the imperative of changing gear , whether it was predicated on speed , revs , throttle opening , or what , I just couldn ’ t pinpoint it , and finding how to stay in lower gears in higher rev bands without invoking changes also caused some head-scratching . Suffice to say that after a while it becomes intuitive , and the override system at the left thumb instantly takes over when you feel it ’ s not reading your mind right . Because mindreading is certainly what it seems to do . It
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