1N23456

fasternyou929 · 03-18-2005, 3:18 PM

I hope this isn't one of those things that I should just know, but I'll risk it anyway...

I've been riding for a long time, first bike was a 50cc dirtbike that had neutral at the bottom of the gear stack (N123). When I made the jump to motocross bikes (and everything thereafter) they've all been 1N23456. I know I'm not the only one that's missed the important second gear shift because of the nemesis Neutral.

My question is: Why is it done like this? Is there an advantage to it? Internal makeup on the transmission? Or is it just the way it's always been done and what everybody's used to, so why change it now?

jakes134 · 03-18-2005, 4:48 PM

Most conventional "big people" bikes are set up this way....probably for mechanical reasons as much as it just makes good common sense.

I remember reading/hearing about how on certain bikes back in the day it went up through the gears and if you shifted past top cog it would go back down to 1st.....yikes~! And those poor shlubs didn't have gear indicators to tell them what's up.....

And someone here might correct me but most early-early bikes had some kinda suicide set-up......We need someone to dig up their old copy of Cycle World with a tech article about this subject.....

fasternyou929 · 03-18-2005, 5:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakes134

Most conventional "big people" bikes are set up this way....probably for mechanical reasons as much as it just makes good common sense.

I remember reading/hearing about how on certain bikes back in the day it went up through the gears and if you shifted past top cog it would go back down to 1st.....yikes~! And those poor shlubs didn't have gear indicators to tell them what's up.....

And someone here might correct me but most early-early bikes had some kinda suicide set-up......We need someone to dig up their old copy of Cycle World with a tech article about this subject.....

Can you imagine accidentally going from 6th gear back to 1st?

It seems the 1N... kicks in for any bikes that have 4 or more gears. I'd be curious to see if anybody could find an old article on this.

abtech · 03-18-2005, 5:15 PM

The original H1 (Kawasaki 500 triple) had neutral on the bottom with 5 gears up. Although easy to get neutral at the stoplight, the racer (H1R) had the conventional 1N2345 to avoid hitting neutral when downshifting in a cluster.

The truth of the matter is that the "neutral" isn't a gear, rather just synchronicity of both shafts without engagement. If the dogs are properly undercut (especially on second gear), you'll never miss a shift. Most missed first to second shifts are caused by "politically correct" square cut shift dogs used to attain high marks for sound by magazine reviewers. A perfectly tuned and shimmed racing gearbox is noisy as hell and always gets a negative comment by the motorcycle press.

fasternyou929 · 03-18-2005, 5:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by abtech

The original H1 (Kawasaki 500 triple) had neutral on the bottom with 5 gears up. Although easy to get nuetral at the stoplight, the racer (H1R) had the conventional 1N2345 to avoid hitting neutral when downshifting in a cluster.

The truth of the matter is that the "neutral" isn't a gear, rather just synchronicity of both shafts without engagement. If the dogs are properly undercut (especially on second gear), you'll never miss a shift. Most missed first to second shifts are caused by "politically correct" square cut shift dogs used to attain high marks for sound by magazine reviewers. A perfectly tuned and shimmed racing gearbox is noisy as hell and always gets a negative comment by the motorcycle press.

Interesting post... I never considered that in neutral was at the bottom you'd easily pass by first in a feverish downshift.

A few of my friends said they had their gears cut down in their 929's and said it shifts MUCH better. Guess I should've considered that about 59,000 miles ago

but I'm pretty accustomed to how it shifts now.

CBRBob · 03-20-2005, 1:44 PM

Arent most of those little 50ish cc bikes equipped with centifugal clutches anyway?

MrFurious · 03-21-2005, 2:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jakes134

I remember reading/hearing about how on certain bikes back in the day it went up through the gears and if you shifted past top cog it would go back down to 1st.....yikes~! And those poor shlubs didn't have gear indicators to tell them what's up.....

And someone here might correct me but most early-early bikes had some kinda suicide set-up......We need someone to dig up their old copy of Cycle World with a tech article about this subject.....

Yeah, I think it was called a rotory shifting trans.