Accidentally downshifted to 1st gear instead of upshiffting to 3rd gear from 2nd gear with clutch disengaged.

[Bosco_RC]

I have a question from a mechanical point of view as well as from not-damaging the motorbike point of view. I'm a new rider with my first motorbike ever (a brand new Honda CB500X). Yesterday something happened and i want to know what was it. I was riding in 2nd gear at 35-40 km/h and was ready to upshift to 3rd gear so I did this sequence: Press the clutch and instead of pressing up the shift lever I pressed it down so instead of engaging the 3rd gear I engaged the 1st BUT with the clutch lever fully pressed. I didn't engage the clutch because the reason I realized I put the 1st gear was because I felt somenthing like the jerk you feel when going from neutral to 1st gear while stationary, but this time the "jerk" was harder. Just after realizing this mistake I pressed up the shift lever to engage 2nd gear and the same "not-soft" erk happened. Then I put 3rd gear, disengage the clutch and everyting went OK. I arrived home 30 min later and the bike was apparently fine in terms of gear shifting

Is this bad for the gearbox? What happened? Isn't suppossed that nothing wrong should happen to the gearbox as long as the clutch is disengaged?

Best

[Gerontious]

These things happen. You’ve done no harm but take it as a lesson. Stop worrying, you might have passed your test but you’re still learning.

[husoi]

Gear change from or into 1st is usually done when stopped or near stopped.

That means gearbox is designed to only allow shifting at low rpm both engine and secondary gears (transmission)

By forcing it into gear you just made the bike sigh and probably comment "another one..." .

The bike will forgive you a few faux pas like that as long you don't make it an frequent occurrence.

If shifting is still normal and no strange noises are coming from the engine you will be fine

[Mississippi Bullfrog]

As above....mistakes happen. If you do it frequently you might shorten the life expectancy of your transmission.  But they will withstand some mistakes without harm. 

[Capt Sisko]

You're not the first and won't be the last. It sounds like you did the right thing and won't have done any harm to the bike, just your pride. Learn from it, move on and enjoy your biking.

[Geordie Oldie]

This thread made me smile, on my first bike I went from first to second but hit neutral by mistake, massive over revs, I thought I might have bent a valve!

 

It was a 2 stroke.

 

Or the time 2 up on a Honda 50 cub, as a joke I "raced" a hot hatch away from the lights. Automatic clutch,3 speed with neutral at the bottom ( I think?).

 

Revs the balls out of it in first and second, then instead of changing up to third, went back to first, managed to stay upright but only just.

[bonio]

No, no harm to the transmission. It's built to take worse than that. 

I'm sure I've made the same mistake. Just too old now to remember it.

[Bosco_RC]

Thanks for the replies!! Yup, this seems to be a typical begginer mistake, will take even more care from now on. Too many new things to learn and automatize, have to teach my brain to do all this sequences correctly while focusing on the road

Best

[RideWithStyles]

As

Edited May 14, 2024 by RideWithStyles