I never had much of a problem with that on my Aprilia. It could be a little tricky to do the half-shift up into neutral without thunking into second.

I traded that for a Ninja, and a bullet point on its sales brochure was some mechanism that would prevent it from going into second when stopped, so with the back wheel stationary, just lift the pedal from first and you’re in neutral. I’ve not had that mechanism apart so I don’t know how it works, something about preventing the shift drum from doing a full turn, but I think because of that mechanism, they didn’t have to put as much room between first and second, and so while in motion getting it all the way into second feels as definite as shifting into third.

I tried to shift that bike into neutral while moving and just couldn’t get it to go.