Modern Vespa

Indeed, I did the same thing earlier this summer when I had the clutch cable snap. I timed my ride home so I'd never have to stop for a red light and carefully selected each gear matching RPM to speed and gear and shifted clutchlessly. Only once was I forced to stop (ack!) and then I rammed it into first (thankfully nothing broke on the shifter!) and popped the front wheel a bit, but then I was off and could continue to nurse it home. Now I've got spare cables for everything (with new teflon-line outer housings, too) so this time around I'd just quickly change the cable on the road (probably sub 15 mins).

As I'm sure you know, Nightwing, even in cars will full synchro-mesh gearboxes you can change gears quite seamlessly without the clutch as long as you correctly match RPM in the appropriate gear for the given vehicle speed. It's easier to do upshifting than down, of course.

Hey, Mr. Richard! Good to see you on here.

Yeah, I've noticed I can take corners in 3rd with no problems. After a little while of listening to and feeling the engine in normal riding situations, I think I got it down. I just needed some more riding time with it.

You should post more often, you could contribute a lot here.

I've always done my own little system, and its worked fine for shifting down

1st = 0-10
2nd = 10-20
3rd = 20-35
4th = 35-50

I would be willing to say that the consensus is that as you become more familiar with your specific scoot, shifting (up and down) becomes more intuitive. Each vehicle has it's own characteristics, just as each driver does. Over time, the two blend. Things I did "instinctively" on my VNB 125 needed to be modified somewhat on my PX150. At first, I had to think about it a bit, but with time, I adjusted to the PX's different characteristics and I now react and anticipate based upon the newer and different scoot.

Al