Riding in the wet

[Grahamm]

The problem I get when trying to go in with a lower gear to keep the revs up is that when I try to drop the revs slightly, it seems to react even more, engine braking making me lurch forward and upset the balance.

That sounds like you're in too low a gear or you need to be a bit more delicate with the throttle control. I'll admit that I still have problems with the latter, sometimes I roll off too fast and the bike lurches a bit which isn't very smooth  :\

Aiming for 6K+ would mean taking every bend/corner at 25+ mph, regardless of how tight the corner is.

What gear should I be looking for

For slower bends you'll need to use fewer revs, but it's really a matter of getting a feel for what the bike can do and that really comes with practice.

When I'm riding through the twisties these days I very rarely go above 4th gear unless it's a sweeping bend (ie not tight) that I can pretty much see all the way through or, at least, know that I can stop in the distance I can see clear on my side.

What I would do is to repeatedly ride a piece of road I'm familiar with (ie I know I'm usually taking a bend in 5th gear) and instead deliberately select one gear lower and pick the revs up to keep the same speed (using the Limit Point to judge how fast I should be going).

After a while I got a better feel for which gear would give the best power response to the throttle position such that, as mentioned, rolling off would give a controlled deceleration rather than an abrupt lurch, but giving it a twist would give a steady acceleration.