Shift with heel or toe

[hal1]

Any preferred reasons to up-shift one way or the other?  Lift up with toe or press down with heel?

I ask this because the Symba actually has a shift lever at the toe and by the heel

[capitalcityscooters]

I think you do what feels most comfortable to you.  I am not always the model of scooter safety as I have a tendency to scoot in heels so I tend to use the ball of my foot on the heel shifter.  My stepson always shifts with his toes.  There's no advantage one over the other except for what feels best to you.   

[josh]

If you're wearing motorcycle boots, it's a tight squeeze to fit your toe under the shifter to shift up.  I tried once to use my heel on the rear shifter to shift up, but that didn't work too well. So I settled on just hitting it with the ball of my foot too.  works good for me!

[uraldog]

You may find it easier to tap down on the rear pad of the shifter with the ball of your foot to up shift and down shift as usual with the front of the shift arm

[TeamSymba]

I find that sometimes my heel inadvertently presses down slightly on the back of the shift pedal, momentarily disengaging the clutch.  For that reason, I'm switching to the shift lever that only has the front part.

[MissEnota]

According to the Just gotta Scoot review- www.justgottascoot.com/symba.htm - ...the optional longer seat helps you use the heel shift.  A passage from that review:

"For me, it's like a whole new bike! I was able to sit comfortably in the position that allowed my foot to be perfectly placed on the heel/toe shifter."

I love the stock seat with a milk crate bungeed on to the back rack but it's true, I find it difficult to use the heel shift with my knee forward of my ankle. 

[Morgan]

I also had a hard time pushing back with my heel and had been using the ball-of-foot method to shift up for a while. It just didn't seem like I should have to be doing that, though. A simple solution was to simply adjust the angle of the shifter. There's a set screw where the shift levers connect to the shaft going into the transmission. Take that out all the way and the shift peddle slides right off. Change the angle of the peddle, slide it back on, and then replace the screw. I changed mine by about a 1" turn counter-clockwise (raising the heel shift part up) and it made a world of difference. It's very comfortable to heel shift now, and it makes feathering the auto-clutch a lot easier too.