Parking lot maneuvers with a dry clutch

[stew12st]

I have an '05 R1200ST and have noticed the "burning clutch" smell when doing parking lot maneuvers and occasionally in bumper to bumper traffic . It does go away with time but takes awhile.

2 questions;

1- how bad is this for a dry clutch?

2- other ways to do the slow drive maneuvers other than dragging the rear brake and riding the clutch / gas to control the bike (as I have been taught in a couple of courses)?

Thanks

Stew

[bmwron]

Stew,
I have found that I sometimes do better without dragging the rear brake and when you slip the clutch, only do it as much as necessary and don't use any more throttle than needed. Just make sure you have enough rpm's that you don't have to worry about stalling it.
bmwron
05 R1200GS

[AntonLargiader]

With practice I think you'll minimize the clutch burning. If you smell it, take a spin to let the clutch cool down. You need very little throttle above idle; the more you use the more you'll heat the clutch.

There's a little video I made one day, doing parking lot moves on an RT, on my website:

http://www.largiader.com/slow/ then look towards the bottom for the link called "Here is a video" With the sound on, you'll notice the engine never revs very high.

Some might recognize the bike of Doug Raymond, whose Alaska ride was written up in ON a year or so ago.