Night brought up something about footpeg grip. Let's look at it like this. With the bar grab of both hands, tuck your knees against the bike and stand up via knees. Nice try. With feet firmly placed, stand up on the pegs. Now sit down. That's your [natural] foot grip, and was without thinking to get you to that body static. See how the knee squeeze is more for aero? Make sense?
Night brought up something about foot loading the shift lever first. You do not want to load the lever and heat the shift fork touch points. As mentioned, I believe motorcycle transmissions evolved from old school F1 cars first. The hand is quicker than the eye sort of foot movements too. This is all about that lever being left alone until that split second is needed. And dropping your foot away so it reengages the next shift.
The thing is, 2nd has a longer throw because N takes up that gap. There's your common generic mis-shift on most bikes. The other gears have shorter throws so it is easy to catch those, sans 4th. Without looking in the book, I also believe the gear ratio is ever so slight that the engagement is out of sync from 3rd entering 4th. Add the lever pull, the shift up, I've miss that gear with this bike and with every other 14 I've owned no matter the combination change, meaning, with or without shift lever load.
Another time saver timing the shift is to have zero throttle play or most of it taken up. The sequence is:
PULL CLOSED Cable Adjuster ~ This is the first to have the slack taken up. So the movements are to hide the threads at the cable adjusters. This has the most slack for both cables. Take up all the slack at the throttle close cable adjuster [first]. Swing the front end lock to lock and watch the throttle cable move. With all the slack out and where the adjuster begins to take up all the slack, stop. That's more of removing most of the static slack but not begin to tighten the cable like a guitar string. Lock it with the thumb-wheel. Don't bark down on it, just make it snug or it's tool time unlocking those with pliers.
PULL OPEN Cable Adjuster ~ Take up the same slack on the throttle open cable adjuster. With index and thumb, feel the throttle move where there is zero kind of slack removed. That's all. Again, swap the front end lock to lock and watch the throttle open... IF Any! Loosen till no movement. If none, lock this cable adjuster up, you're done with the cables. Less instant-on-instant-off movement to gap thru.
It's all about timing.
Tormenting the motorcycling community one post at a time