www.DRRiders.com

Wow. That's the first time I've heard that about a DR. If you were closer, I'd let you take my YX600 for a ride...close-ratio 6spd. I can almost hit 6th getting across a large intersection, and 1st is too tall to idle through a parking lot without slipping the clutch a bit. The DR has a much bigger difference in revs between gears. It's a whole lotta shifting riding the YX around town.



This might be a large part of why shifting seems to not change much how your engine pulls. Throw your stock carb back on for a weekend and see if the gears don't seem really spaced out again.

I'd also try other sprocket combos to see what works best for your riding. I ran 85MPH (indicated) for almost 1200 miles on a trip from Tyler Texas to Melbourne Florida, running the stock 15/42 ratio. The DR didn't seem over-revved at all, and it had run around in the wet dirt, clay, grass, and sand all week on my mom's farm just fine too. I recently swapped to 16/46, to minimize chain wear while running a 520 setup. I also wanted to keep the highway ability similar to stock, but experiment with a slightly lower 1st and 2nd gear offroad. I swapped to the 46t rear, while still running the 15t CS, and took a little ride to test it out. Revs were considerably too high for me at 70MPH+ (indicated), while this 15/46 combo is only about 1 rear tooth shorter than the popular 14/42 (equivalent to about 15/45) combo. The 16/46 still seems comfortable at well over 75MPH (indicated), yet pulls just slightly better from a stop with a passenger than the stock gearing. I'd like to try 16/47 as well, seeing as it would be just slightly taller than the popular 14/42, but even better for offroad than my current 16/46.

My approach...Try to gear just tall enough for comfortable highway revs with my usage (your common speeds may vary). Then let a well-sorted carb and a fit clutch hand deal with the bottom end offroad. Appropriate tires help too. I'm switching to DOT knobs for more offroad, since I have a pavement bike too.

14/42 but I'm an easy off road rider...

My commute includes 20 miles of 70 mph freeway, so I went
with a 16 tooth countershaft sprocket with the stock rear 42 tooth sprocket.
It cruises nice and vibe free at freeway speeds now, and it still
has plenty of torque to cruise around town in start and stop traffic.
BTW, I don't take it off road very often, but when I do, it seems to do just fine.

That is what I wanted to hear as I would also like to go to a 16T CS sprocket as I only ride freeway and did not like the high RPMs at speed.

I have 16/42 and at 80mph the rpms are at 4900. Passing sucks though.

Thanks seacraft69, I would not want to go faster than 80 MPH anyhow. I think I have a better power to weight ratio so my passing should be a bit more lively than yours.

that's right you have the 780 kit don't you? im in the process of building a motor now. i just went with the h/c piston and cam though. but since my bike was uncorked before the tranny went, this should be a big improvement.

Yes I do have the 780 kit and I weigh less than 140lbs..!!

Some good advice there, thanks!
I also find that 1st gear is a too high for idling around a car park without a lot of clutch shifting on the DR. I might try a 14t counter sprocket with the stock rear sprocket.
I would play around with different front sprocket & rear sprocket combinations but my budget doesn't really allow for that. I might try digging up that thread over on ADVRider where this guy has figured out some good front/rear sprocket combinations for offroad/highway riding/street rding and can change out the front sprocket in 10 minutes.

I'm liking the 16/46 so far. It's roughly the same as 15/43. If you run a lot of high-speed pavement, but still want smooth starts or bumbling along in parking lots, this ratio works well. It doesn't really cut into your top end before Johnny Law would. Our fastest speed limits are 85MPH (137KPH) in some western states, and the DR will still run there (GPS) with this gearing. 14/42 (Is 42t stock rear in Oz?) would be better if you don't do high-speed (110KPH+) riding.

Something else just occurred to me...You could run tall stock 15/42 gears with an auto-clutch. Then you'd have lazy high-speed RPMs, and no stalling/lugging issues at low speeds.