Shift patterns and why 1 up 3 down ?

A P!! was my 1st then 30+ year later a Combat, which was so clapped out it had 14 oil leaks, not counting the smoking rings. So got an SV650 to ride for some years while climbing the fully fettered Commando learning/spending curve, but was still please in panic reflexes to avoid smash downs on loose sloped curves I tapped the shifter instead of the brake on my jap bike and glad I was already going slow enough I didn't crash from the error, just a slight skid mark in shorts. D/t fate my 1st and 2nd Combats down time of ~5 yr more of me riding SV650 instead, last month finally recovering Trixie Combat rod bolt let go, my reflexes were set to LH shift RH brake, ugh. Goats took SV out of riding last 2 years so hope to get back to normal soon.

I can scratch my SV pegs *in good places* but boy howdy I sure don't want to shift it when far over or upsets its chassis terrible on the power cut and thrust return.
Similar with my factory Combat as onsets hinged handling, but enjoy the hell out of apex leaned shifts on my linked Cdo. So unless acting a nut in public there is no reason for one shift pattern over another.



Didn't photo the soles with further wear till needed resoled but should last a long time on Trixie or SV650, till I get tri linked Ms Peel going, then may need steel tips to preserve em for the toe under down shifts leaned to get into tire spin safety zone to accelerate better into the apexes. No other cycle I know of enjoys harsh accelerating to max traction loss but my tri linked Ms Peel, so laugh my toe nails off on moderns traction controlled/slipper clutch bikes bragging about better trail braking ROFLOL!! i Think ya might be missing out on something w/o a rear rump rod to reveal the wisdom of 1up/3dn. If you don't enjoy faster accelerating into fast decreasing radius turns, then ya definitely are...

Fullauto said:

Even weirder, all the Harley big twins .....

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Speaking of weird, did you ever ride an Indian with LH throttle, RH gear lever (manual), RH front brake, LH clutch paddle and RH brake pedal - not to mention the RH twist grip for ignition advance? That's advanced artistry on a motorcycle .... :mrgreen:


Tim

Tintin said:

Fullauto said:

Even weirder, all the Harley big twins .....

Click to expand...

Speaking of weird, did you ever ride an Indian with LH throttle, RH gear lever (manual), RH front brake, LH clutch paddle and RH brake pedal - not to mention the RH twist grip for ignition advance? That's advanced artistry on a motorcycle .... :mrgreen:


Tim

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Sounds more like suicide. Rode a WLA once with tank shifter but I think that's about my limit.

Tintin said:

Speaking of weird, did you ever ride an Indian with LH throttle, RH gear lever (manual), RH front brake, LH clutch paddle and RH brake pedal - not to mention the RH twist grip for ignition advance? That's advanced artistry on a motorcycle .... :mrgreen:
Tim

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Speaking of artistry.......did see a guy riding his Norton with his arms crossed !! If you want to find out how hard this is try on a bicycle first and let us know your results :twisted:

As Swoosh Dave says , Tap the lever Down , and youre going Faster .
One of the reasons a Commando is quick on a strip .
Being forced backwards you have less dexterity in your shifting toe
shifting Up for Up.

Another reason is , like on Manxes , runnig decent tyres by the 60s
and pre war drifting on the gravel , down meant up, going faster .
If you had to put your foot under the lever leant over , it might not
happen , your foot could get knocked off , or if under the lever ,
the ground push your foot up , in an involanteery gear shift ,
or just hit neutral .

However , for TRIUMP riders , before 1970 , if a corner came up ,
they were able to stomp on the pedal ( gear shift ) to slow down .
As Triumphs being a bit cruder needed to be steered round the
corner on the throotle , so putting the shift like that , it served
two purposes , so they went quicker to.As when you hit the corner
you had to hit the throttle.Or youd fall of. this way Triumps went
round corners faster, the brakes just slowed you down.And
overheated anyway .They even fitted a aurtomatic ' slick shift '
to throw the clutch and speed things up.But these were only
fitted to Pre-Units.

other inadequacies of units were that they were harsher , a PRE-
or NON unit ran smoother , cooler , had more room on it ,
better weight transfer ( for standing starts ) and better
inirtial stability.

So you can see why you shouldnt let Honda-Boys design Norton's.

Before the Japanese take-over, all British bikes were right-side shifters. All except Triumph were up for down, down for up. The original argument was that your foot rotatyed in the same direction as your throttle hand for the shift. Why Triumph did it the opposite way, I don't know, Sheer bloody-mindedness suggests itself!.

The exception to the rule was the early Velocette LE, which had a tank-side hand shift on a non-sychro car-type 3-apeed transmission. That was a real pain down-shifting. You pulled the clutch (left hand), moved the lever to neutral (right hand), released the clutch (left hand), blipped the throttle to synchronise the gears for the lower ratio (right hand), pulled the clutch again (left hand) then put the shift lever into the lower gear (right hand again) and then released the clutch. Meantime you still had to steer and maybe brake. If you were going uphill, you might have stopped altogether before you were finished trying to shift.

Talk abpout looking like a one-handed paper-hanger! Velocette wised up and put a proper constant mesh gearbox with a foot shift on the later series bikes.

When the Japanese bikes came along, they initially went after the US market. Their ergonomics folks concluded that, since many riders would be coming from cars, rather than starting out on bikes, they would be pre-disposed to think of braking with the right foot They may have been a bit scared of the NHTSA, too. What decided them to go up-for-up, I have no idea. Never having ridden a Harley, which way do they do it?

The change over from the original UK pattern, which was common to my Ariel Leader, my BSA A7 and all the stuff I rode at N-V, is one reason I decided not to get a bike when I emigrated to Seattle.

P.S.

It's not just bikes that are quirky. I once had a 1958 DKW 2-door hardtop car. Wonderfully engineered machine, but definitely odd. Wish I'd kept it. I paid $50 for it, ran it for two years as a daily commuter and sold it for $75.

It had a 3-cylinder 2-stroke 998 cc engine with all low voltage ignition, so there were three sets of contact breakers and three coils, one to each cylinder. It ran on an oil/gasoline mixture and you had to pour a pint of oil into the gas tank before putting in 5 gallons of gas.

The radiator was mounted on the firewall, with a shaft running along the cylinder head from the fan-belt puuleys at the front to the fan in front of the radiator. Mine was even more weird, in that it had "automatic stick-shift". There was a "four on the tree" shift lever and no clutch pedal. The shift lef]ver had a micro-switch at its base which opened a solenoid valve plumbed into inlet manifold vacuum. Down where the clutch linkage would have been was a 2-pound coffee can with a diaphragm across it and a pushrod connected to where the clutch pedal would no\rmally hook up.You touched the shifter and all that gear pulled the clutch in. You shifted gears and let go, it released the clutch. There was a centrifugal actuator that disengaged the clutch starting at about 800 rpm as it slowed down and re-engaged as you stepped on the gas

DKW had this unusual interlocking ring logo that now graces Audis, the successor to DKW.

It was the best $50 car I ever owned.

Speaking of weird, did you ever ride an Indian with LH throttle, RH gear lever (manual), RH front brake, LH clutch paddle and RH brake pedal - not to mention the RH twist grip for ignition advance? That's advanced artistry on a motorcycle ....

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Yes sir, a big ole Red Indian Chief with long horn handlebars just as you describe. Not too hard to operate but did have to think each move after being used to my Norton Ranger. Best be in N before stopping as sure didn't want to put the L foot down on the ground otherwise to catch your balance. Rode and handled pretty good even doing the leaping ditches and flying over crests like the old army HD ads showed. These big V twin Indians were 45 cid or 750cc's like ours. Lever came on either side though.

hobot said:

Ok dookie StevenMadManix, can you tell me if a Manx chassis is tolerate of snicking an upshift WOT in mid apex max lean?

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If you need to change gear at the apex, you've entered the corner in the wrong gear to start with.

For what it's worth I use a japanese pattern shift on both my race bikes. My reasoning is that it's easier to do quick taps with your toe to shift DOWN. It's quite common to arrive at a hairpin corner and need to shift from 5th to 1st in a couple of seconds and that's far easier by tapping four times with your toe than hooking your foot under the lever and wrenching it up four times.
When you need to shift up, you only do it once every few seconds and you get plenty of time to do it.

Just the way it works for me.

swooshdave said:

I want to get a newer Triumph one of these days, but I'd need to figure out how to check it to a right shift with 1up4down. :mrgreen:

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hey swoosh dave i own one of those newer triumph [2002 bonnneville] and they are are a little bit fancy for a classic bike owner . they have electric start , disc brakes front and rear !! indicators yes indicatorss and a 5 speed gear box !! and if you get after market pipes they sound like a real bike !!!
cheers

macca47 said:

swooshdave said:

I want to get a newer Triumph one of these days, but I'd need to figure out how to check it to a right shift with 1up4down. :mrgreen:

Click to expand...

hey swoosh dave i own one of those newer triumph [2002 bonnneville] and they are are a little bit fancy for a classic bike owner . they have electric start , disc brakes front and rear !! indicators yes indicatorss and a 5 speed gear box !! and if you get after market pipes they sound like a real bike !!!
cheers

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Oh, you mean like a MkIII? :mrgreen:

imagine comming FAST into a bent and you need to brake , what do you do ? you sit up and move a gear down . Now what is easier ;moving your foot up or down? TRY IT you will find up is easier
imagine coming out of a bend and want to move up a gear , what do you do ? you crunch down and move a gear up . now what is easier ; moving your foot up or down ? TRY IT you will find down is easier

pommie john said:

hobot said:

Ok dookie StevenMadManix, can you tell me if a Manx chassis is tolerate of snicking an upshift WOT in mid apex max lean?

Click to expand...

If you need to change gear at the apex, you've entered the corner in the wrong gear to start with.

For what it's worth I use a japanese pattern shift on both my race bikes. My reasoning is that it's easier to do quick taps with your toe to shift DOWN. It's quite common to arrive at a hairpin corner and need to shift from 5th to 1st in a couple of seconds and that's far easier by tapping four times with your toe than hooking your foot under the lever and wrenching it up four times.
When you need to shift up, you only do it once every few seconds and you get plenty of time to do it.

Just the way it works for me.

Click to expand...

I never had to change down from 5th to 1st for any bend............and if you need to , sitting up and tapping down seems very unergonomic to me If your body is moving up so is your toe

Took the Rice Burner out for a spin last weekend while waiting on parts for the Norton. Rounding right thru the yield lane at fourway stop in 2nd and let her rip... brain cramp... step down on shifter and watch the tach sail into the red before yanking in the clutch. Tabernac ! Thankfully the ole 650 Kaws are bulletproof.

lynxnsu said:

I never had to change down from 5th to 1st for any bend............and if you need to , sitting up and tapping down seems very unergonomic to me If your body is moving up so is your toe

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5th to 1st happens occasionally, 5th to 2nd happens all the time. Turn two at Jehonville ( at the bottom of the hill ) is one you might be familiar with. Phillip Island turn 4 is 5th to 2nd too. Symonds Plains has a 5th to 1st corner, so does Cadwell park.

As I said, it works for me. You do it your way , I'll do it mine