Confident Clutch Feel

Dirt bike oil needs to provide wear protection for the engine and gear protection for the transmission. But it also must provide good clutch feel, which sometimes gets overlooked.

Clutch feel is critical when you’re starting from a dead stop, negotiating an obstacle on the trail or performing on the race track.

To illustrate, imagine a gate-drop start in a race. The rider must hold the clutch in and apply some throttle. Then he’ll let the clutch out just until the bike wants to move and hold it there until the gate drops. When it does, the rider will give it as much throttle as he can and feed in as much clutch as possible as quickly as possible.

Essentially, the bike needs to go from a dead stop to moving very quickly. And then the rider will quickly shift through the gears. To execute a gate-drop start as effectively as possible, the clutch must not slip too much or grab too much; it has to provide consistent, confident clutch feel.

Clutch feel is critical to rider success

We recognized this was so important that we developed a special test called the “Extreme-Start Test” to simulate racing starts. Once we secured the bike on the dyno, we underwent several starts and ran the bike through the gears. Generally, we did second-gear starts and ran to fourth gear. That allowed us to test clutch feel while testing the durability of the oil in the transmission and the engine.

Not only did AMSOIL Synthetic Dirt Bike Oil provide rock-solid wear protection for the engine and gear protection for the transmission, it also provided consistent, confidence-inspiring, repeatable clutch action.

Whether you’re a professional rider or a weekend warrior, AMSOIL has you covered.

This article is part of our Motorcycle Oil and Maintenance guide. See every article in the guide.