[thetable]

Think about it this way, if you left every stop light using 6th gear, to accelerate you would pretty much have to hold the throttle wide open wich is going to use more fuel less efficiently. Now I know that is a huge exageration, but is used to illustrate the point of lower RPM si not better.

Maintaining a steady speed and throttle position, find a residential street and put the bike in sixth gear at 25MPH and look at how much throttle you have to put in to maintain speed, now drop into third gear and notice how much throttle you are using to maintain speed. Again extreme exagerations, but to illustrate the point. A lower gear is not always better, there is a sweet spot where you have to use the least amount of throttle.

[Mat0302]

the "idea" of gears is to match road speed with engine speed. Riding in 6th gear at 25 mph is bogging the engine down because you forcing to much gas into the engine. The bike's manual will show you at what speed to shift to the next gear. Try going by that if you what the most out of gas mileage. Lower RPM is not better and neither is higher RPM. It is the midrange, probably before the engine starts to vibrate so much.