Thinking about selling one of my little bikes?

[Twist]

Thanks, I might try that when she's feeling frisky on the 110. I have a sure fire way of teaching the friction zone to first timers. We sponsored a midshipman a few years ago and taught him how to drive our 6-speed Jeep. Once his friends found out and I ended up teaching about half of 5th Company at the Naval Academy how to drive a clutch. No worries though. I put them all to work to pay for the lessons.

Using a clutch these days is a forgotten skill.

I taught all of my kids how to drive a clutch and motivated them by not letting them drive until they passed my manual trans "course."

[Marylander]

I had a manual car stolen by a crack head. The guy had just enough of a notion of how to operate a clutch to get the car going. When it was recovered the transmission and clutch setup were destroyed. The car was pretty much brand new too and was the first car I ever bought myself. :(

I chased a guy on a stolen sport bike years ago. He didn't really know how to ride. He was trying to shift but I think he was just kicking it down. But in first gear he was still doing 70 mph. He eventually crashed and I took him to the hospital before jail.

My CBR got pretty close to 100 in 1st gear, or so I'm told. ;) My car was recovered at the end of a chase. The guy tried to off road it (more damage) and then got out and ran. A K9 caught him and he resisted the dog. He also went to the hospital. The DA seemed to have glee in his voice when he was telling me the story...

[Bucho]

Ive seen the dogs mess people up.

Certainly sounds like he earned it.

[Marylander]

I taught all of my kids how to drive a clutch and motivated them by not letting them drive until they passed my manual trans "course."

Same here. Their friends were on the highway the very first time they drove while my kids were doing laps of the hilly middle school near home. They thought it was too much work but realized real quick that they were much better drivers than their friends who hardly had to pay attention to drive. That's one advantage of stick, your mind must be on what you're doing. My 26 year old is still driving stick. I also taught my wife. I took her to a really steep hill as the very first thing. She learned pretty quick and is still good at starting from a stop on hills. Double knee surgery and then re-tearing the meniscus on one of them means we got her an automatic towards the of the year last year though. :(

[Twist]

Funny story - my daughter's senior year in high school she shows up first day of school in our Wrangler 6-speed; parks in the student parking lot next to some kids gathered around another Jeep belonging to a Lacrosse jock pretty boy. When they all found out that his Jeep was an automatic and Melissa's was a stick, they relentlessly referred to his Jeep as the girly jeep for the rest of the year. Kids can be so cruel. My daughter came home so tickled and proud.

[Marylander]

Awesome

[Bucho]

Funny

[J&J]

Jacob will like that story since his first car was a Jeep with a stick. All his buddies wanted to learn how.

[Laoch]

I learned on a stick and I have always owned sick shifts. Funny how the world is changing. —looking for OFG emoji—