As several have said, long arm pointed down is
RUN, long arm pointed forward is
RESERVE. If you ride with the lever in RUN till it starts to sputter, you can reach down and switch it forward before it dies completely, and then drive to the gas station.
When I first got my Savage 7 months ago, I was riding happily along when the engine quit. I pulled over and tried to re-start with no success. I put down the stand, got off, said offensive things to it
, and then got back on and tried to start again, and it did
. Got about a block and quit again. Went through the same routine, and about that time I realized I was out of gas
, switched over to
RESERVE and was fine. Seems that as I got on and off and leaned the bike from side to side, a small amount of fuel was sloshing over to the main side from the reserve, and giving me just enought to re-start. Another lesson learned, this one about paying attention to the odometer!
One thing to remember (and I will not discuss how I know this
), is to be sure and turn it back to
RUN after you get to the gas station. Otherwise, you are running using the reserve portion of fuel as well as the main, and you won't have a reserve.