Confessions of a Newbie Rider

[JoeRock]

#1 It helps if you change early from 1st to 2nd, ie. no higher than 4k rpm
#2 What's the problem? I change from 6th to 1st without releasing the clutch in between.

God don't do that! It's incredibly bad for a sequential gearbox to have that done to it, you need to make sure every gear you have has been selected and meshed properly on the way up and down the box to avoid anything being stripped!