• GEARING is everything. You aim to keep revs in a constant, high, range (6000-9000 on this bike, aiming at around 7000-8000 ideally) and keep switching gear up and down according to the speed you want. The point is traction - as you rev the engine, it's like you're applying a sticky paste to the tires. The more you rev, the more they stick. Implications:
  
  • Gearing with incline: Each gear determines a max speed. 1st gear in "no hands" mode lets you coast down a fairly steep hill safely because it restricts wheel motion. You get traction AND you don't need to apply brakes in general; and applying brakes is best avoided as it further reduces traction. On steeper inclines, you can apply front brake ever so slightly and if need be just get some brushing contact with the back brake too.
  • Gearing with turns: The trick is to take turns in lower gear, since you want low speed.
• ENGINE BRAKING, i.e. reducing throttle, is much better than wheel braking.
• REAL-TIME PLANNING is always watching ahead as far as you can see and looking for hazards as well as changing conditions. The time to change gear is before the curve/incline-change, not during it.

• LINES becoming especially critical once you are familiar with the above, because you are now moving faster and have less margin for error. There are three lines you can take: racing line, safe line, messed-up line. Racing line optimises speed at the expense of safety. Safe line is what we want - optimises safety. And messed-up line is the untrained dog-paddle equivalent that mixes both of the above with a belly flop. The basic principle with safe line is to always be maximising your visibility of any oncoming vehicles/entities, their visibility of you, and also to give yourself a good turning angle. If you do see something heading the other way, slow down and move to the side, swerving in an emergency. Following the real-time planning principle, it's good to get in position as soon as you can see the upcoming curve even if it's half a mile away.
  
  • For left handers (this is in countries where you're on the left), you want to stay in the middle of the road, right around the line, and gradually move back to the centre of the lane as soon as you have full visibility.
  • For right handers, stick on the left side and once you have full visibility, move to the centre.
  • For hairpins, do the same as above depending on which direction, but you just have to keep moving through slowly and keep in the same place (centre or left) until the hairbend starts to complete and you again have full visibility.
• CLUTCH CONTROL is useful on flat and uphill surfaces. There's a spectrum. "No hands" clutch (released) will cause maximum restriction to speed. Full clutch application will remove gear effect, causing free-wheeling downhill (bad - no traction) and no acceleration flat/uphill (pointless). So you would generally want to ride in "No hands" clutch and only apply clutch for changing gears. HOWEVER, there's a small range in the middle (around 60%-75% from full->nothing in my experience on this bike) which gives you fine control and lets you just slightly speed up and slow down. This can be useful when moving slowly. We also did a "game" of moving off-road as slow as possible and this was the key to moving extremely slowly and staying upright! So it's like 0-60% same same; 75%-100% same same, and only that small window where there's any effect of the level.

Next trip:

• More protective jacket
• Helmet cam
• warmer gear for overnight stays