How does a quick change work?

How does a quick change work?

How does a quick change work?

That's why racing bikes have long had quickshifters – which, as the name suggests, make shifts happen quickly – to reduce the time the rear tire isn't pushing the bike forward. Sometimes racing technology spills over onto the bikes we ride on the street. Is it really essential to save a fraction of a second when you speed on the highway for your daily commute? Probably not. But some people like to give the clutch a break, some like the high-tech feel of a quick shifter and probably some like to pretend they're a GP star.

Whatever the reason, quickshifters are showing up on more and more motorcycles we buy and ride, so let's examine how it works.

Quickshifters come in two varieties. One type assists in upshifts and the other assists in both upshifts and downshifts. We'll discuss upshifting first, as it's common to both types of quickshifters. Before we get into them, though, it helps to understand what's happening mechanically with each gear change.

Normally, on a motorcycle without a quick shifter, the rider closes the throttle. Then the rider operates the clutch lever to decouple the transmission from the engine. The engine rpm drops, and once there is no more power flowing through the transmission, the gears within it are unloaded, allowing the shift dogs to release the gear combination used. The driver then shifts the gearbox to select the next gear, re-couples the transmission to the engine by releasing the clutch lever, and finally reapplies the accelerator.

It takes a long time to type, a long time to read, and a long time to understand, but if you're reading this article, you've probably done it more than once and know that it's a pretty quick operation. To cut down on time, however, racers and street demons have long performed clutchless shifting, which involves momentarily releasing the accelerator to unload the transmission, select the next gear, and then re-engage the accelerator.

A quickshifter that assists during upshifting eliminates the necessary throttle movement. Normally this is done by momentarily cutting off the spark or fuel to the engine. On carbureted motorcycles, fuel cutoff is not practical, so spark cutoff is the most practical method of cutting engine power. However, cutting fuel is the preferred method for a number of reasons, most of which have to do with the negative impact of sending unburned fuel through the engine and catalytic converter, so it is usually the approach best for fuel injected cars.

The timing for the cut-off is usually provided by a transducer mounted somewhere on the gearbox or linkage. (The most common additional setups are done in-line with the shift rod.) The transducer detects a change in pressure on the shifter or linkage, initiating the shutoff of power for the gear shift. Many factory units use a mechanical switch pre-loaded with a spring as of this writing, but there are switches built with fixed strain gauges, which preserve the natural feel of the shift if the spring isn't for you.

Now, of course, the other half of the equation is downshift. Not all quickshifters can handle downshifts, because the process is slightly different. You may hear about a quick shifter that also handles downshifts called an “autoblipper,” and there's a good reason for that. When downshifting, the engine rpm must not decrease, it must actually increase. Instead of momentarily cutting the engine power as in a downshift, the engine speed is increased! The engine is “squeezed,” as many cyclists will naturally do when downshifting a gear or two to facilitate gear engagement and to help match the speeds of the transmission and the driven plates in the clutch.

Due to the amount of electronics that modern motorcycles have, such as fuel injection and adjustable ignition curves based on knock sensor input, adding a quick shifter is not very onerous either from a parts nor programming, so this is another reason why they are becoming more common on factory machines.

If you've never used a quick shifter, you should know a few things about them. First, they are not automatic. You still need to know when to switch and you have to activate it yourself. Second, they tend to work better without human interference, so when upshifting the throttle should be open and downshift should be closed. This is in contrast to what many riders trained to do prior to these units, so may require an adjustment period.

It's also important to know that they work better in higher gears for the same reason your shifts smooth out in higher gears: the gear jump is smaller as you numerically increase the gears. Also, depending on the gearbox in question, they can work really well in one part of the regime, and not so well in others. Depending on how the drives work, there is sometimes a trade-off; not all systems allow all shifts to be silky smooth at all speeds.

You'll increasingly find them as factory options on motorcycles that aren't strictly racing machines—quick-shifters have quickly spread to luxury touring motorcycles as well. Conventional shifting has its drawbacks, and quick-shifters, much like automatic transmission motorcycles , attempt to combine the best qualities of both systems.

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