Ever noticed how some riders shift constantly — and others barely touch the gear lever? In this POV ride on my 2025 Husqvarna Svartpilen 401, I explore why I prefer staying in lower gears and shifting as little as possible. It’s not about laziness — it’s about flow, engine character, and how this Scandinavian naked bike rewards a minimalist approach to riding.
From city streets to open roads near Mogilev, Belarus, I share my thoughts on control, engine braking, and why the Svartpilen’s torque curve makes high-RPM shifting unnecessary for everyday riding.
If you ride a Svartpilen, Duke 390, or any single-cylinder urban bike — this might change how you think about your gearbox. Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and share your own shifting habits in the comments!
Uh hey, what’s up guys? Today I want to discuss the topic about uh gear switching because I’m getting comments that I need to use more gears. I need to switch them more often. And so, ironically enough, in Russian speaking segment, when I upload videos, the users say that I need to allow more RPM for my motorcycle and I need to switch out 7 or 8,000 RPM. In English speaking, segment segment, people usually say that you need to switch your gears more often. Yeah. [Applause] But from my perspective right now, I do actually like uh it’s the best fit for me. For example, we have speed limit 60 km per hour in Belarus. And you can see this camera a headsp speeded speed control for 60 km/h. Yes, I can go the 69 km per hour maximum. And so right now I’m on the third gear and so I can control my power and I don’t break the limb speed limit actually in the city. If I go on the fourth gear right now, you can see how fast can I go. Yeah, I definitely broke some speed limit already on the motorcycle and so for me it’s much better to use the third gear in the city. I feel more power control and so if I break some limit is not a big uh problems for me is going to be and so is the first reason for plus I have more control in the city when I go on the lower gear. Okay, I can right now switch on the second gear. Right now I believe I need to switch to the first gear too and go slowly slowly slowly waiting this traffic lights [Applause] and so I’m okay. I’m on the first gear. I know uh there are a lot of RPM right now on the second gear. I totally control what I’m actually doing. I like when I feel the power of motorcycle. [Music] And so yeah, there is one of the reason why I don’t switch gears. Okay. Why should I go did uh should I go on the uh fourth gear if I need to switch to the second gear right now? Yeah, there is no reason to be in the high gears. [Music] [Applause] cross. Okay, I’m going to the store right now. Dog, do be careful. Don’t go. Please. Please don’t go. [Music] [Music] Yeah. [Applause] [Music] [Applause] Okay. Another argument about switching gears more often. Fuel consumption. Uh, a lot of people say that you’re going to consumpt. Okay, I will say the difference. I will say the difference right now. When I switch my gears uh more often, my fuel consumption is around uh 4 and 1.2 uh lit per 100 kilometers. But when I ride more aggressively, my consumption around 4.7 L per 100 kilometers. You can see that there’s not a big difference. Also, you need to understand that in Belarus we have a pretty cheap fuel around 77 US cents [Music] or around 70 cents US I mean cents. That’s why it’s not a big argument that you’re going to save some money. Not a lot of money you will save if you’re going to uh switch uh gears more often. So that’s why there is not a big deal. Also, this engine works much better when you uh around 7 or 8,000 RPM. Uh it’s uh it has this type this type of character. [Music] Yeah. And on the first gear, how it really actually goes. I can see this power around 8,000 RPM. Why do I need change my gears at 5,000 RPM or 6,000 RPM? I have no idea. And so that’s why I switch gears when I feel I need to change them. If I need to feel more power, I switch them more uh uh not so often. If I need to just uh I don’t know, be more careful and so probably save some fuel and I just want to cruise slowly. Yeah, definitely I can switch more often. Yeah, you can see this police uh road police and so yeah and they was really aggressive but anyway anyway [Applause] [Music] yeah this is my thoughts about uh switch gear uh switching gears. It’s an individual thing. I I believe if you want to switch more often, you can do, but I prefer not to switch. And so when I started to ride my cycle, I have a manual car actually. And so before I switch gears in the car more often and right now I afford my car work much better. And I started to understand that my Cat Ryan is going even much faster. It can go really really fast and can has this power. I have I had no idea before I started to ride motorcycle that my citrine has this power. That’s why I believe it’s not a bad idea if you uh can run your motorcycle or car. And so if you can afford it, if it you don’t care about fuel consumption or something like that, it’s not a big deal for me personally. Yeah. This is what I wanted to say about uh gear uh switching the gears. I getting a lot of comments. So even though I don’t have a lot of viewers right now subscribers, but anyway uh every second comments about this uh problem. But for me it’s not a problem. It’s just uh my style. This is how I like to write. This is how I like to do all this type of thing. Okay. Thank you for watching this video. Subscribe to my channel. And so I’m going to uh share a lot of uh about my experience riding uh about probably point of view videos like we are riding somewhere else. Unfortunately there’s been the winter is coming and so uh very soon the my season is going to be end but anyway anyway okay thanks again and have a good day guys.