Maybe I am saying it wrong. What I want is for the bike to pull harder from the start. I really don't care about top speed because I will never get there anyway. Going down a tooth in the front will not give me that? Any advise is helpful?
For a ballpark comparison, a -1 is equal to +3 rear...a common misconception. While the overall gear ratios are very similiar on paper, the difference in real world feel is very noticeable.
If you add teeth to the rear you'll lose a small amount of top speed, not noticeable unless running top speed is what you want to do(I know you don't).
Adding 3 teeth to the rear will only raise your rpm's by about 400 to 500 at highway cruising speed(and everywhere else). The bike will accelerate noticeably harder. Exactly what you're looking for.
On the other hand, going down teeth on the front, a -1, will not make full use of the bike's available torque. The engine will noticeably "feel" as if it has lost torque, and the engine will rev up and tach out quicker. A good comparison is that the unique torquey feeling Busa will now feel like a 1000.
Consider you were using an 18 tooth gear with a manual crank handle to raise a heavy water bucket froma a well. Now try to do the same job with a 6 tooth gear. You will work much harder to accomplish the same task, and turn the handle many more times.
The comparison may seem like a far stretch, but the end result is the same.
I have run many gearing combos on sport and dirk bikes over the years, and I can tell you honestly that a -1 front does not feel like a +3 rear...for the above mentioned reasons.
For what you are trying to accomplish, a +3 rear will do a far superior job than the -1. Consider that if that well bucket crank gear had a chain and another gear(representing your rear sprocket) that you would accomplish the same thing again easier with the larger sprocket, which in your case is going faster sooner.
Make sense?
