Has anyone ever put a jockey shift on thier XS11?

[joceiphus]

They obviously look cool to Sojourner.
The first hand clutches showed up on race bikes in the teens, but the foot clutch remained standard equipment on production bikes for fifty years after that. Why?
I promise, unless you can't chew gum and walk at the same time, it only takes a couple times around a parking lot to master.

[Guy_b_g]

http://www.military.com/news/article...ESRC=army-a.nl

Like I said, to each their own.

[joceiphus]

Why the link to imposter seals?

[Guy_b_g]

LOL...oops..

I had posted in another thread in hot button topics...posted the link and then I highlighted this:

They obviously look cool to Sojourner

I evidently didn't hit "copy"

So when I pasted I got the same thing I had in the other thread.

Didn't even look at it since it was such a short reply.

Maybe a moderator can delete it.

[joceiphus]

I thought you were saying I was posing as a seal. That would be the LAST thing I would pretend to be. I wouldn't think a real one would take too kindly to that!

[Guy_b_g]

LOL..naw...just a mistake...and I wouldn't want one of those guys upset with me either. Though real tough guys like them don't usually let things tick them off too much, they have nothing to prove.

[crazy steve]

If you just have to have a Jockey shift, think about this set-up....

I used to know a guy who had lost his left lower arm (in a bike wreck) and ended up with a hook. Couldn't work the clutch lever, so his only choice was a jockey shift. He didn't want the lever down by his hip, or anywhere where he had to move his 'hand' far from the bars. So what he came up with was very close to the original jockey shift (that was mounted on the tank; the rearward location was a cheaper mod to eliminate the troublesome cable that HD used way back when).

He took a Hurst shifter lever, shortened/rebent it to clear the tank, and put the pivot point just below the front edge of the tank. He used a custom-made cable to go to the trans lever. Worked slick, and actually looked pretty cool. The shifter 'wrapped' around the front of the tank and ended up less than 12" from the grip. To do this today, you wouldn't even need a custom cable; a cruise through any car wrecking yard should turn up a transmission shift cable that would work, and it would be fairly cheap.

Still not as safe as conventional controls, but a hellava lot better than having to reach down and/or back to shift.

'78E original owner

[Sojourner]

I was doing more research about this online, and I think I mis-spoke. To me, any stick shifter on a bike was a jockey shift. Apparently what I really want is a tank shifter. My plan was to mount a large capital L (or a squashed lower-case h) to the same spot that the foot shifter mounts to. So the bar come forwards like foot switch, but goes all the way up to the case cover, bends around it a bit and then straight up beside the tank. The look I was going for was more like driving a british car with a manual tranny (since it's on the left), rather than whipping Manowar in the Derby. No reaching behind, just down to the left side of the tank roughly in line with the gas cap. With drag bars that shouldn't be more than 8" from handlebar grip to shifter knob. Hopefully you can picture what I'm getting at. Also picture the long oval guide mounted t a post under the tank. The oval is just a few mm wider than the shifter and is only long enough to go up and down gears as needed. Your suggestion only really differs from mine at the attachment point. Mounted near the tank or attached to the splined shaft the normal foot pedal mounts to. To be honest, your design sounds better than mine.

Now there's the issue of the clutch. Still trying to find why just mounting the normal hand/bar lever to the shifter is a bad idea...

[crazy steve]

...To be honest, your design sounds better than mine.

Now there's the issue of the clutch. Still trying to find why just mounting the normal hand/bar lever to the shifter is a bad idea...

Not my design, I'm just relaying what I saw. The guy that built it didn't really like it, it was just the best solution he could come up with for his particular situation.

I can think of three reasons not to put the clutch on the shifter; one, your 'leverage' is probably going to be poorer due to the location. Two, that's just that much longer your hand is going to be off the bar. It'll be 'pull in the clutch, shift, let out the clutch' every time. Much faster to just give the shift lever a flip. And three, when you go to pull on the clutch lever, you'll have to be very careful not to pull the shifter or you'll find you shifted without the clutch and the sudden jerk could put you on your head.

'78E original owner

[Sojourner]

They obviously look cool to Sojourner.

I'll readily agree to the cool factor, but more importantly a non-standard shifter provides to things: A) The bike is harder to steal. B) It cuts down on the "can I ride it?" questions.

I'm beginning to think I'm going to skip on the jockey/tank shifter idea. I got to thinking about the standard drive into work. I did the rush hour commute to work by 10 speed quite a bit last year- the roads sucked and the drivers were 10X worse. Blackberrys, donuts, coffee cups, ladies putting on eyeliner in the rear-view mirror, and more. Then I got to thinking about the wife and kids. Then I got to thinking that I might just buy a "CLUB" lock thingy for the handlebars, and start being a blunt SOB.

Maybe at my age (READ: stage in my life with two kids under 6) it don't look so cool after all?

Thanks for all the input. Maybe I'll just table the idea till hey get out of college?

[Ivan]

What'd look really cool with a shifter like what's on a Massey Ferguson would be tires like what's on a Massey Ferguson. The ribs in the front would help when turning in mud and the lugs on the back would be great for traction when pulling a wheat drill.

How cool would that be?

[Lunatic]

Clarity for clarity sake

Heads up on terminology.
Suicide clutch
jockey shift
Not the smae thing
No such thing as suicide shift no matter how many times folks mis-use the words.
On the old foot clutch bikes, some bikes had an over-center pivot so that once the clutch was depressed all the way, it would stay depressed. This way you could put your left foot on the ground. Some chopper and customizers though had just a depression pedal that did NOT stay down, So, upon coming to a stop you had to find neutral so that you could put your foot down. Remember, no front brakes on choppers 'back in the day' so you couldn't use your front brake to stop. Right foot occupied with rear brake. Left foot occupied with clutch. Suicidal situation, get it.
If you have a foot clutch, that does not stay down, and hand shift, THATS refered to as "suicide clutch" and "hand shift" (Depending on where the hand shifter is mounted gets to the "Tank, or Jockey" shift).
Go ahead and put the foot clutch on the Yamaha, but keep the front brakes so you can come to a stop AND put that left foot down. When you make your foot pedal, make the cable mounts adjustable so that you can move it around a bit to find the right feel for pedal travel.

[DGXSER]

Heads up on terminology.
Suicide clutch
jockey shift
Not the smae thing
No such thing as suicide shift no matter how many times folks mis-use the words.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_shifter

Dang....just when I thouhgt I could trust the internet. Good thing we got all these folks that were around when they invented this stuff to correct the terminology.

[Lunatic]

YOu might want to be sitting down for this

I know this may come as a shock, but not everything you read on Wikipedia is accurate.
Over center clutches were standard on most foot clutch HD's.
"Oh no's I took one hand off the handlebars, now I'm gona die!"
just ponder it a bit,, is it relaly THAT dnagerous, an act of suicide, to take one hand off of the handlebars?
That makes little to no sense.
A foot clutch that stayed down when depressed ... nothing suicidal there either. One hand off of the bars only briefly, and both feet able to be put on the ground at stops. Not a big deal ther eeither.
Foot clutch tht doesn't stay down though, well that could be a HUGE safety issue if in a panic you let off the clutch to keep from falling over and shot out into an intersection. THAT would be suicidal.

[Pat Kelly]

Use the rear brake 'system' from an XJ (foot activates rear and one front brake). Convert right front handlebar m/c to activate hydrolic clutch (search forum for that mod). This leaves left hand free for shifting. Comvert/modify a set of 'rear-sets' for the shifting mechanism. Whole thing could be (nearly) bolt-on in case you want to go back to original.