...I've only owned 2 Valkyries and both are/were kind of clunky shifting. I feel that they weren't designed for sport bike shifting and resistance to finding 1st at 15 mph is normal.
The subject may have been discussed at length on the old Tech Board, and may be present in the Tech Archives, but: Are you familiar with gear synchronization as a function of input and output shaft speed?
At certain motor RPMs, one can effortlessly move the Valkyrie's transmission between gears. There's a resonance which sets up in the box...said resonance effectively unloads the gear dogs by virtue of the shafts matching speeds. Faster or slower and the dogs tend to lock themselves together; this of course by design.
I've owned 5 of the GL1500Cx models over the years. The sweet spot for gear changes with all of them has been around 2500-2800RPM. If I shift much outside that range (or before the next "harmonic multiple" of shaft speeds) the boxes will definitely clunk. Hit the right place and you'll never hear a peep out of them, even with the tach north of 5K.
Try shifting yours around that speed (IIRC, the owner's manual details it too) and see if they still clunk. If so I'd start looking at the clutches.
My 2-to-1 downshifts @ 10MPH or less are a "snick", not a "clunk". FWIW.
