Sticky gearshift

[kaliron5]

Hey guys,

Hope all is well. I have been riding for a month now and appropriately consider myself a beginner. I had the scariest thing happen to me the other day.

I was stopped at a traffic light and thought I had the bike in 1st gear. When the light changed, I started to let out the clutch and give throttle as I would any other time. The engine just roared and I was not going anywhere. I kicked down again and tried to take off but nothing happened. I tried up shifting and downshifting and nothing was happening. Finally, I kicked down on the gear shift hard and it popped back into first.

The scary part about it was that a very very very large truck was coming right behind me and he thought I was going to go once the ligh changed, but I counldnt. The truck came to a screatching halt about a foot away from me.

Whats the deal? Has this happened to anyone? Is my transmission shot or just sticky? Is there something I can do to fix it?

Thanks,

[Dupo]

Well if that happened to me, first thing i would check is where the 'sweet spot' is when you pull the clutch lever in. I would want to see if the clutch is engaging way too late and possibly not really engaging when you pull the lever in. Might just be something you can adjust at the lever or down at the transmission area.

[Zod]

A lot of times you just need to roll the bike forward a foot or so before it'll go back into gear. You can also sometimes go up to 2nd instead when it won't go into 1st, but keep in mind you'll have verrry little pick up starting in 2nd.

[Badbob]

I had lots of trouble with this when my GZ250 was new. Here is my take.

It's not broken. Lots of small bikes have this problem. I have ridden Hondas that did exactly the ssme thing.

The GZ250 owners manual says you need to be in first gear when the GZ250 goes below 9 mph. Some experimentation show this to be somewhat variable but a pretty good general rule of thumb. The slower you go below this speed the more likely you are to miss the down shift and wind up in second, third or neutral. You can even get caught part way in to first and have the bike jump to neutral when start moving.

So how do you deal with it happens to you? Don't force it. You could break something and then you get to push your bike. You can move the bike forward or back a little and take some of the pressure off the gears. This works pretty good on level ground like in your garage I do this just about every morning to get it to shit into neutral for a warm up. The primary method I use in traffic is to give it a little clutch just into the first part of the friction zone while applying some pressure to the shifter. This will get things moving in the transmission and when it lines up in the right place you can down shift. Repeat until you get into first.

When you stop make it a habit to check to see if you are in first gear. After you have put as many miles on your GZ250 as I have you will notice that the shifter feels different when your in first gear than it does when your in any other gear. It feels harder. It also makes a little clunk sound going into first.

[Ofnoan]

I experimented today with the shifter. Normally I shift to first gear way before I stop at a traffic light. The first gear is easy to hear, it gives some heavy double clang.
And yes, it is a problem sometimes to shift to the first gear when you have already stopped. So nothing is broken, it is normal for GZ250.

[Dupo]

I'd be careful of shifting into first 'way before i stop at a traffic light'. Shifting into first too early, then the light changing green, could be hazardous (being over speed for first or letting off the clutch and compression locking the rear). Should really start shifting into first when you are going under 5mph or stopped at a light.

DELETED

[maryes7]

oil the shift lever pivot. This is a common problem with this bike.