Thanks 66T and Simon for the advice. Good stuff!

At the risk of exposing myself as a total bonehead, and for the benefit of others who might have experienced the same, I will fess up to how I resolved this. I�ll sound like an outright newbie here but the truth is I�ve had a few bikes in the past (all second-hand until the XT) and I�ve never noticed this problem of getting stuck in neutral.

First up, a recent post on this forum about changing the clutch alerted me to the fact that a correctly adjusted clutch has the notch on the clutch arm lined up with the indentation on the housing when the clutch is disengaged. Mine wasn�t � although lever free play was fine. So I adjusted the cable, at both the engine side and the lever side to maintain the right free play and line up the notches.

Secondly, internet searching has showed me that this is a common problem on a range of bikes and an inherent facet of bike gearboxes (especially on �new� bikes where it�s all still tight)� it just needs to be managed. A lot of blokes say they never go to neutral on the street � thus avoiding the issue.

So, as per the previous explanation, if stopped at the lights for an extended period, I�d go to neutral, take my hand off the clutch to rest. Then when green try to engage 1st gear but no go. The remedy is as 66T explained: simply let the clutch out to spin the transmission and then try again, and it will always go into gear.

It was happening so often to me that I thought there must be a fault � and my inexperience in traffic had me panicking when it didn�t slip into gear so I�d jump on it to change rather than just calmly re-clutching it� It still goes in with a clunk � but that sounds like it�s pretty standard for these bikes too.

Put 600 km on the bike over the past couple of weeks and the issue has been resolved. I was deliberately trying to make it happen by stopping and going to neutral, but it hardly ever got stuck (not sure if the cable adjustment helped that), and when it did happen, I just re-clutched it and it was fine� so, long post to explain that I am basically a dumb-ass. But hey, if it helps someone else�