Lots of good advice in here for the basics. Only one I’ll bother repeating is to get used to your clutch by slowly releasing it and getting the car moving without touching the throttle at all.
Also never downshift into first. This is a bit of a soft rule since it can be done, but the speed you need to lose before you do is a lot more than any of the other gears. If it’s a 6 speed, this might even apply to 2nd gear to a degree. To figure out when it’s safe to downshift to first, redline it in first and check your speed. Never do it at or above that speed as a hard rule.
For intermediate techniques:
When shifting while moving, let off the gas a bit before pressing the clutch. The idea is to smoothly stop accelerating to reduce the jerk you’d normally get from going from accelerating, clutch (decellerating), back to accelerating once in the next gear. Your passengers will appreciate it if you can get this timing down, though if you’re on your own, it doesn’t matter as much since you can anticipate the changes in acceleration.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, practice speed shifting once you’re comfortable with clutch timing and gear positions. It’s the same motions as a normal shift, just aiming to do it all as fast as possible. It’ll give you better acceleration when you need it (very noticeable if you compare one and the other when accelerating beside another car from a stop light).
For stop and go traffic and traffic jams, instead of maintaining the same distance from the car ahead of you, try to figure out a constant speed you can maintain and let the cars ahead of you do the pull up (away from you) and then brake to a stop (while you slowly catch up to them). If you can find the right speed, you can stay in first gear instead of needing to get in gear, move up, then clutch. The “getting the car moving without throttle” skill from earlier can help here and sometimes you can go a while in a jam without touching the gas pedal. It’ll reduce the wear on your clutch and brakes if you can drive in a way that uses them less.
And an advanced technique:
Clutchless shifting. If there isn’t a lot of force on the gear, you can pop it into neutral without the clutch quite easily. And by force I mean if you aren’t accelerating or engine breaking. Getting into another gear is harder but also possible. The hard part is that you need to match the engine speed with the transmission speed for the gear you want to shift into. If they match, it’ll just slip in. But matching is easier said than done, since the car is decelerating and the engine also changes speed very quickly with no load. If the speeds are far from a match, it will feel like the gear just isn’t there. If they are kinda close, you’ll be able to find the gear but it will grind when you try to put it in all the way. If they match closely, it’ll just slip in as easily as it slipped out to neutral.
Why would you want to know how to do this? Well, for one, it’s very satisfying to do properly. But I was very glad I could do it when my clutch died. I was able to drive for another week without a clutch because I was competent enough with clutchless shifting. Note that if you need to do this, you have to turn your motor off when you stop (unless you’re on a downward slope), put it in first and start it in first gear to get moving again (which feels awful and is awful for your starter and probably not great for the whole drivetrain, so get it serviced asap but this might at least save you from needing a tow).
Lots of good advice in here for the basics. Only one I’ll bother repeating is to get used to your clutch by slowly releasing it and getting the car moving without touching the throttle at all.
Also never downshift into first. This is a bit of a soft rule since it can be done, but the speed you need to lose before you do is a lot more than any of the other gears. If it’s a 6 speed, this might even apply to 2nd gear to a degree. To figure out when it’s safe to downshift to first, redline it in first and check your speed. Never do it at or above that speed as a hard rule.
For intermediate techniques:
When shifting while moving, let off the gas a bit before pressing the clutch. The idea is to smoothly stop accelerating to reduce the jerk you’d normally get from going from accelerating, clutch (decellerating), back to accelerating once in the next gear. Your passengers will appreciate it if you can get this timing down, though if you’re on your own, it doesn’t matter as much since you can anticipate the changes in acceleration.
On the opposite end of that spectrum, practice speed shifting once you’re comfortable with clutch timing and gear positions. It’s the same motions as a normal shift, just aiming to do it all as fast as possible. It’ll give you better acceleration when you need it (very noticeable if you compare one and the other when accelerating beside another car from a stop light).
For stop and go traffic and traffic jams, instead of maintaining the same distance from the car ahead of you, try to figure out a constant speed you can maintain and let the cars ahead of you do the pull up (away from you) and then brake to a stop (while you slowly catch up to them). If you can find the right speed, you can stay in first gear instead of needing to get in gear, move up, then clutch. The “getting the car moving without throttle” skill from earlier can help here and sometimes you can go a while in a jam without touching the gas pedal. It’ll reduce the wear on your clutch and brakes if you can drive in a way that uses them less.
And an advanced technique:
Clutchless shifting. If there isn’t a lot of force on the gear, you can pop it into neutral without the clutch quite easily. And by force I mean if you aren’t accelerating or engine breaking. Getting into another gear is harder but also possible. The hard part is that you need to match the engine speed with the transmission speed for the gear you want to shift into. If they match, it’ll just slip in. But matching is easier said than done, since the car is decelerating and the engine also changes speed very quickly with no load. If the speeds are far from a match, it will feel like the gear just isn’t there. If they are kinda close, you’ll be able to find the gear but it will grind when you try to put it in all the way. If they match closely, it’ll just slip in as easily as it slipped out to neutral.
Why would you want to know how to do this? Well, for one, it’s very satisfying to do properly. But I was very glad I could do it when my clutch died. I was able to drive for another week without a clutch because I was competent enough with clutchless shifting. Note that if you need to do this, you have to turn your motor off when you stop (unless you’re on a downward slope), put it in first and start it in first gear to get moving again (which feels awful and is awful for your starter and probably not great for the whole drivetrain, so get it serviced asap but this might at least save you from needing a tow).
This is great advice here, both for moto and cars.