Throw up or down .

I find the throw on the gear foot lever rather long to select a gear . Actually it doesnt feel long it is long .Was looking at it trying to work out a
way of making it shorter and slicker .From the pivot point to the rubber knob on the end , center to center, is 130 mm. On my Aprilia its 90 mm.
Triumph 105 mm
So at 130mm the lever is long . Lets say the lever had horizontal holes from the pivot to the foot piece ,which was removeable .If you were to move the foot piece
closer to the pivot point wont the throw be shorter ?The big question is if you moved it 40mm closer to the pivot how much shorter will the throw be ? Any mathematicians out there / Forget about not being able to reach it with your foot .

You just need to measure the length of travel as it stands now e.g. how far up to need to lift it to select the next gear.
From there you can draw it on a piece of paper and see what a shorter leaver will do for it.
Don’t forget the amount of leverage will be reduced by about 30% so you might find shifting harder than what it’s worth.
You can get pegs and leaver setups for the Bandit which might be a better option. Someone on here already has them.

Ok because its late and I felt like doing something different I roughed it out on some paper.
In round figures a 40mm reduction in leverage will equate to about 20% less travel required.
If the throw height was 20mm you will now only need 15.5mm for the next gear (assuming the selector rod location stays as it is)
The extra effort required is about 30%

Brilliant answer 2Wa .i failed maths . I'm going to measure the full throw on the Bandit and compair it to the Aprilia .Maybe 5 mm more feels
like 50 mm .

Now it gets complicated .The threaded push pull rod is on an angle .If that rod was vertical and closer to the pivot point .would that help ? A hole
in the cover with a stainless rod coming through sounds kind of cool.
This is going to do my head in for sure . but its starting to sound interesting .

No ,second idea wont work .If the rod is straight it will have to attach to the other side of the pivot point thus giving you a race pattern
Press down to change UP and press up to change down .Dont fancy that ,

Back to first idea .Make a bracket and bring pivot point back towards footpeg .Move rubber boot lug forward towards pivot .
Making any sense.?

I used measured the throw of both bikes , there is only 3mm in it.
So its not the throw but something more gear box related , not playing with that .Talk about going around in circles .
Thanks for your help Chris

Then again i could clamp a knob further forward an see how it felt .

Or........ you could adjust the lever so that to don't have to lift much to change up. That will make a longer throw to change down but you don't need to be as racy going that way normally. BTW I didn't think there would be much difference.
Investigate new pegs & shifter. I'm sure you'll be able to paint them black

Oh yeah my shifter knob is almost worn out! I counted about 40 gear changes each way to work and back each day lucky mine is comfortable

I just had another good look at it .The Aprilia has The lever directly onto the spline so nice positive feel .The bandit has 4 parts to it .Too much
play .If you grab it by hand its quite sloppy .I'm thinking teflon washers instead of those spring one .

gus wrote:I just had another good look at it .The Aprilia has The lever directly onto the spline so nice positive feel .The bandit has 4 parts to it .Too much
play .If you grab it by hand its quite sloppy .I'm thinking teflon washers instead of those spring one .Oh no, is that patented or is it ok
without the lever .

let it go

Bugger now you have repeated it.

making shift rod verticle won't do too much as rod and levers are at about 90 degree angles so pretty much at best now.

some silly and trivial stats (keep in mind these are from dodgy measurements using my kids wooden ruler on the workshop manual which is on my computer. I don't have the bike to check for real)

Shift lever (at the shift shaft) to gear lever (shift rod end to pivot) ratio = 0.95:1
Gear lever (as above) to toe (pivot to toe piece) ratio = 0.53:1
Shift lever to toe ratio = 0.5:1

Mate, you're going to look like Ronald McDonald wearing boots that are 40mm longer than your normal shoe size!

2wheelsagain wrote:

gus wrote:I just had another good look at it .The Aprilia has The lever directly onto the spline so nice positive feel .The bandit has 4 parts to it .Too much
play .If you grab it by hand its quite sloppy .I'm thinking teflon washers instead of those spring one .Oh no, is that patented or is it ok
without the lever .

let it go

3

gus wrote:I just had another good look at it .The Aprilia has The lever directly onto the spline so nice positive feel .The bandit has 4 parts to it .Too much
play .If you grab it by hand its quite sloppy .I'm thinking teflon washers instead of those spring one .

4

Saikhan wrote:

gus wrote:I just had another good look at it .The Aprilia has The lever directly onto the spline so nice positive feel .The bandit has 4 parts to it .Too much
play .If you grab it by hand its quite sloppy .I'm thinking teflon washers instead of those spring one .

4

What are we counting?

Yeah i had trouble counting that myself .
Pivot
1st rubber coated connection
2nd " " "
Connection to spline

I think your right carnt count the last one =3

That still leaves the Aprilia 0

Do those two rubber covered things need to move? Imagine them welded solid ,would the gear shift move or just jam ?

Gus I'm going to shorten myshift lever by about an inch in the next couple of weeks so I'll let you know how it works out.

Reason Fossil ?

gus wrote:Reason Fossil ?

+ 1 given the maths shows 40mm saves you SFA

Just get an electric shifter.

I'm going to try and buy Teflon bushes to today .I was playing around with a teflon block the other day .Cut easy but when i came to file it
no way.It had grafite in it .Super tough and slippery.

I went into the shed last night to measure the throw of the Aprilia's gear shift .I just could not get it to click into gear by hand .After a few attempts
i stood up frustrated looking at it .Woops wrong side ,thats the rear brake .

gus wrote:I'm going to try and buy Teflon bushes to today .I was playing around with a teflon block the other day .Cut easy but when i came to file it
no way.It had grafite in it .Super tough and slippery.

I went into the shed last night to measure the throw of the Aprilia's gear shift .I just could not get it to click into gear by hand .After a few attempts
i stood up frustrated looking at it .Woops wrong side ,thats the rear brake .

Even if you are joking thats still funny

Unfortunately its true .Imagine doing that first day on the job . Walked in looking at a set of Verniers and just knelt down next to the bike .
Hey, there was a lever there .

Put an extra nylon washer on the pivot bolt .2 alone was too tight so went with original washer AND nylon washed .Has taken out the slack
Cost 50 c. Havnt ridden it as yet .

Gear leaver movement graph. 1/3 scale.

gus wrote:Reason Fossil ?

Reason I'm shortening the lever is

(a) I got new boots ( old ones work well but have zero foot, ankle, shin protection) and they ( new ones ) just don't fit well between the footrest and the shift lever , I feel like I need a double jointed ankle to get my foot vertical to get under the lever for an upshift. I tried raising the gear lever but without relocating the pivot point there is not enough vertical height increase to make much difference and in any case I realised that I don't want the shift lever sitting high because I don't want to have to consciously raise my foot up off the foot peg for a downshift. Extra distance between footpeg and lever should alleviate the boot fit issue - and -

(b) I'm trying out the footpegs flipped 180 deg to make life easier for my fecked knees ( Lowers the pegs about 1.5" ) and this has the side effect of bringing the footpegs slightly forward so again a shorter lever will help.

I'm not trying to get a shorter gear throw or anything like that and I'm hoping that by only taking a max of 1" off the lever the effort at the lever and the throw distance will not be much different - I believe the extra pressure required on the lever is quite small. It's all about trying to make the bike more comfortable for me.