To be honest, I had completely forgotten about the power button on my 650 and had not used it for the last year. Generally the Burgman has enough get up and go as it is. So after my ridding buddy Charles was showing off his Burgman 650 and mentioned it, I decided to play with it again.

The first step to using the power button was just being able to locate it with my left thumb without looking. If you need the power button it is probably at a time that you don’t want to take your eyes off the road to find it.

So I spent about a half hour just riding down the road and getting comfortable with finding it by feel. Look, I’ll come up with any stupid reason to ride and that is as good as any.

Once I was comfortable I could locate it I moved on to test a couple of different situations of using it. The first was something that I missed from my old manual shift motorcycle, downshifting.

As I rolled up on a red light I pressed the power button and sure enough it did downshift the bike in automatic mode and help to slow it down using the engine compression. If makes the stopping distance much shorter but that’s probably not a feature that you want to use in traffic. At least give the car behind you a reasonable fighting chance of actually stopping.

I found that with the power button in that it was easier to apply the throttle in slow moving traffic instead of getting that lugging or rough shifting that happens from time to time at slow speeds.

When using the power button to accelerate, use it with caution because when you are cruising, it will light the afterburner. The biggest concern is going to be to watch your RPMs and make sure you don’t redline the bike. It would be easy to do since you are going to want to keep applying the throttle.

My friend Danny was riding with me as I was testing this and after he got off the bike he was complaining about my using the power button. His words, “Every time you press that button to stop and start, I get a wedgie.” I think that made me appreciate the power button even more.

I can’t really see an application when you would want to ride with the power button in for long periods of time, more than a minute or so. I tend to apply is as necessary in short bursts.

As far as launching from a standing stop with the power button in it was a bit better but it seems to make a bigger difference if you get rolling and then apply it.

So, if you have not had a chance to play with the power button, try it. And if you’re like I am and completely forgot about it, go use it and report back.

Steve

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