I've only put about 500 miles on my bike but I have never experienced a false neutral. I have 2 theories about this...either I haven't ridden enough yet (definite possibility)...or, because I ALWAYS ride with boots my foot is not very sensitive to the shift lever and therefore I tend to use a moderate amount of force each time I upshift/downshift. I am wondering if someone who rides primarily in sneakers and has a better feel for the shift lever tends to get more false neutrals due to applying less effort?

Note that when I say "moderate amount of force" it is a solid engagement of the lever without "stomping" on it.

Thanks

False neutrals are a sign that your transmission is on its way out. You really don't want them and you shouldn't ever experience them. I've never felt one in the time I've owned my GS (more than a year now) and I consider that a very good thing, especially since it is rapidly approaching 90k miles. If you are lazy on the shift, you can get stuck in actual neutral. That is a much more common problem. If your clutch isn't well adjusted or you're a little light shifting from first to second, you can get stuck in neutral, which is annoying, but not the sign of a major problem.

Quote from: fred on April 25, 2009, 06:47:30 PM
False neutrals are a sign that your transmission is on its way out. You really don't want them and you shouldn't ever experience them...

Oh.

I read on one of the dreaded "oil" threads that someone claimed the type of oil they used caused more false neutrals than normal. I figured that if oil could cause them then they must be fairly normal. My bike has only 3k miles on it and seems to be working OK (admittedly I have a tiny sample size for comparison---first bike and all).

Sometimes it takes a little more effort to shift from 5th to 6th than through the rest of the gears...but it doesn't seem excessive.

Thanks Fred, you always give thoughtful advice.

Sure, glad to help out. Some people argue that different oils will change the way your clutch works, and I guess I could give them that you might end up in neutral going from first to second more often if you had an oil that made the clutch work a bit less well, but you'd have to already have a poorly adjusted clutch or oil alone to make that much of a difference. No amount of magic synthetic oil will make your transmission come back from false neutrals caused by thousands and thousands of miles of abuse related wear.

If your bike only has 3k miles on it, the two things most likely to kill it are forgotten routine maintenance (running out of oil, letting a valve get super tight( and operator error (crashing, redlining the bike, stuff like that). It shouldn't be too hard to get the bike to 100k miles or more, the trick is getting enough time to actually ride it that far. Talk to GSJack about that one...

Or maybe it's not yet broken in?  I think they're pretty common. They'll disappear as you hone your technique.

If it is that new it seems more likely that the oil level could be causing it.

My oil was pretty low once and I could not get it in to neutral to save my life. 

5thAve, I have never experienced a false neutral. I couldn't say whether or not it is broken in. It is 7 years old. It may have spent most of its life training new riders. I wonder if it has a harder time going into 6th gear because none of the previous owners rode it fast enough to shift that high very often(?). Perhaps it simply sat in a garage for 5 years. It is in remarkably good shape for its age.

I have read about false neutrals enough that I figured they were more common than they appear to be. I do not know many folks that ride so you guys get the "benefit" of my dumb questions.

fred, I am maintaining the bike to to the limits of my (expanding) knowledge level...not as well as most people on this forum...but I suspect better than many "average" riders. Operator error on the other hand.......

Quote from: 5thAve on April 25, 2009, 07:28:44 PM
........................................................ They'll disappear as you hone your technique.

there, fixed it for ya

for the record, false neutrals have nothing to do with oil, rain dances, or loving farm animals, or prefering one ale to another. it's the ryyyyyda.

I have occasionally had the bike slip from second back into neutral under extreme acceleration, but I attribute it to not fully shifting it into gear, due to focusing more on clutch control, and not wheelying

I get loads of 'false neutrals' - when the gear slips back into the lower gear that I've just changed up from.  When I say loads...you know what I mean?...life's too short to count them all ...it's just every now and then - especially when I'm tired.  I'm convinced it's just my lazy gear changing technique sometimes.  In fact, Ill tell you what my theory is for my occasional crap gear change - my crap motorcycle boots!!  I wear very cheap boots and the gear changer pad on my boots wears out very quickly.  So I change very gingerly sometimes - a bit woosy - in an attempt not to wear them out too soon.  In my case it's just a commuter problem - riding every day just trying to conserve my gear.  Probably a case of false economy - instead of constantly renewing cheap gear I should but some tough expensive gear.  But with a wife (lovely wife) and kids (lovely kids) to support well, you know, blah, blah blah...   I am going to change my oil in the next week or so (it's been a year and I've done about 6,000 miles or so) so that should help.

I wouldn't condemn the machine immediately just because of a few false neutrals...

bassman

I Have a fake nuetral between second and third. No different from the regular nuetral.

If I only tap it part way up or down in that range (IE Don't firmly and solidly hit it) then the bike will rev freely while applying no power to the wheel. It will do this until I shift into gear.