You might be surprised!
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All that could be true, but you have to run whatever speed the road conditions allow. I have about a mile and a half of dirt road to get to the highway from my house. I never shift up from 4th gear on the dirt road. It is not a real bad road. It has had crushed limerock dumped on it over the years until the sugar sand gets hard packed and usually fairly smooth, but I still don't ever shift up out of 4th gear, so I am doing the higher RPM thing even if I may not be doing it intentionally. Really though, I did not buy a 1330 with 6 gears to save on gasoline. I can afford all the gasoline needed. Used to get about 70 miles per gallon with a TS185 dirt bike. I didn't buy it for mileage either. It was another toy to play with in the dirt, but it did get good mileage on the highway. Good gas mileage is not something at the top of the list when I look at a motorcycle or a truck. I buy what I want and what I need to haul loads or tow trailers. My truck doesn't average much more than about 16 or 17 miles per gallon, but a little economy truck with a 4 cylinder would not be safe pulling trailers loaded with round bales or the equipment trailer with the tractor tied down on it. I don't always have a trailer hooked to the truck, but when I do, the truck needs to be big and heavy enough with a sturdy towing package to handle the job. There ain't no perfect vehicle of any kind. It is always a compromise.Changing speed up and down isn't ever going to be all that good for fuel economy, but if you can get into your engine's optimal rev range and then use your gears to keep the revs in that range, preferably with as little throttle movement as possible, even if you are in a lower gear than the highest your engine could pull at that speed, the engine is going to be running at or near its most efficient almost all the time; and that will almost always give you better fuel economy than you'd get by using the throttle a lot and hunting for 'better fuel economy' all the time in a higher gear.
Running Driver/Rider Training and long distance 'Tag-a-long Tours' with some Driver/Rider Training thrown in, I've seen it time & time again - once drivers/riders learn where their engine is running at its most efficient, then start using the gears to keep the engine in that rev range at whatever speed is necessary/allowed, they'll get better fuel economy than they ever do if they just chase the highest gear without paying attention to the engine's most efficient rev range. And it works even if you have conditions like those you found in Taiwan!! There's times & conditions where it might not be fantastic fuel economy, but if you keep the revs in the optimal range for the engine's efficiency, and use your gears to help do that while giving you the road speed you want &/or the best speed you can reasonably use given the circumstances, you'll get better fuel economy than you will if you ignore the ideal rev range and just chase the highest gear. It works, once you get it down pat!
The shift points you see above 4K are for the 998 engine not the 1300. I have found depending on gear and traffic I shift the 1330 anywhere from 2300 to 4000 with the occasional run up to 6500 when in a hurry. Have you noticed with the 1330 that if you try to shift and it thinks the RPM's are too low it simply will not shift?
No I haven’t tried low rpm shift might check it out for a reference point
