Hello and welcome to another episode of Simplified, where we're talking about quickshifters and
auto-blippers, on Simplified we take complicated ideas, like quickshifters and break them down
into small bite sized pieces that you can use.
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So, the latest new thing happening to gearboxes, apart from seamless gearboxes, in Moto GP,
is the arrival of quickshifters and auto-blippers on ever smaller machines.
The biggest difference in terminology between quickshifters and auto-blippers is that
auto- blippers can go down the gearbox, whereas switch shifters generally just go up the gearbox,
which means, some part of your gear change is now automated.
Now, if you've ridden motorcycles seriously, you should have heard of clutchless upshifting,
which means that I'm riding along, I back off the throttle and I'm able to change a
gear without really touching my clutch.
First to second, second to third, third to fourth, and all of these gear changes can
be made clutchlessly without really damaging the gearbox because sequential gearbox actually
handle clutchless upshifting quite well.
Clutchless downshifting, on the other hand, not only does it require a lot of coordination
and skill, there is potential for serious damage in there and that's why most people
will tell you that you don't want to downshift clutchlessly, you do want to use the clutch
in the process, but, gear changes take time.
So at a racetrack an average gear change's about half a second, which means that if,
for example, you take an RD350 with six gears and a Yamaha RX 100, with say, four gears
and you're racing them together, the RD350 is going to lose a lot of time to gear changes
simply because it has to make more of them.
And the reason why quickshifters were invented was to try and see if this time could be saved
and the mechanism is actually quite simple.
It's effectively an automation of the clutchless upshift.
So now, all you need to do is to unload the transmission just like you do by closing the
throttle in some manner and that's what a quickshifter does.
Most quickshifters will cut the spark, which means for that one or two combustion cycles,
it doesn't make any power, that reduces the torque flowing through the drivetrain, that
means that the clutch basket etc. suddenly are unloaded and the shift can go through.
Now obviously, a human being rolling off the throttle, rolling on the throttle, let's say,
takes half a second, the quickshifter can achieve the same thing in one or two combustion
cycles, which means it can happen in milliseconds.
How does it actually work?
Now most quickshifters use some sort of a sensor that tells the motorcycle that you're
trying to change a gear so, usually, you have a strain gauge, strain gauges are used in
racing quite a bit, but they're uncommon in street use, because they're really complicated
bits of technology, although, it looks very simple.
It's like a small electronic circuit that is published or pasted or printed or whatever,
on to the shift lever, so, as you change, it senses the change in the molecular density,
that's why it's called a strain gauge and based on that it tells the ECU that you're
trying to make a gear change.
Most common, of course, are pressure based things whether there's a spring inside, and
when you try to move the gear lever, the spring changes in length and that length change tells
the ECU that you're trying to make a gear change.
What you need to know about quickshifters is that the sensitivity of the gear change
is a crucial part of how slick the experience feels and a lot of expensive systems will
allow you to train the system to learn how sensitively you like it and that means a spring
moving by this much or that much could be the difference between you and me in terms
of riding style and triggering a gear change can sometimes be herky-jerky, if the sensitivity
is off, many of them will also allow you to adjust how long the system cuts out the ignition
for and a motor which is reluctant to change might need a longer interval, whereas a very
fast race kind of a motor might need a very small interval.
So tunability on a quickshifter is always a good idea, although many production systems
actually do it so well now that you'll never even stop to think about this.
Now when you add auto-blipping to this, the system becomes a little bit more complicated,
because remember, downshifting is actually increasing the speed of the engine, so the
strain in the system is going up,
so your gear change has to be a far, far more carefully calculated thing.
And what an auto-blipper actually does is it blips the engine, and by blipping we mean
rev matching which I will cover in a separate episode of Simplified,
please do stay tuned for it.
But, effectively an auto-blipper is a quickshifter with a blip function, which means that the
ECU can now match revs and therefore the downshifts can happen cleanly as well.
If you've seen the evolution of shifting mechanisms, we used to have manual shifts,
then we got quickshifters in expensive machines,
now you have quickshifters available in as little as the 390 Adventure, and therefore
my guess would be that in another three or four years, auto-blippers will also become
a lot more common because the function that blips the throttle is actually a very small
part of the software that the motorcycle is built around.
The crucial thing about the auto-blipper obviously, is that it can blip the throttle without you
intervening, which means that the system does interact with your throttle, and therefore
it is a more mission critical system than just a quickshifter.
So, in sum, a quickshifter can make your riding experience quite smooth, a well-tuned quickshifter,
and you'd be going to go up the gearbox without having to use the clutch, it can feel extremely
pleasant to ride and if you're in full performance mode, which is where the quickshifter does
its best work, this is where they're smoothest and most effective, in that going
up the gearbox, shifting through a quickshifter can feel absolutely amazing.
Are they crucial to your riding experience?
I would say, not really, on the flip side, and auto-blipper is an interesting piece of
technology, because being able to go down the gearbox as you're busy because when you're
entering a corner, you have braking to do, you have body positions to adjust,
you have the throttle closed, you want to open it,
you're looking through the corner, it's a busy time,
an auto-blipper can make your life simpler, but again, this is a performance application.
So, the summary is, if you have a quickshifter on your motorcycle and you think it's not
very smooth, think about how you're riding.
These systems were invented for max performance, they don't really do that well at lower performance
unless the manufacturer has spent a lot of time tuning and validating it.
But, do you essentially need a quickshifter in your life?
Not really.
Is auto-blipping a great idea?
Yes, but should you be learning to blip, rev match and downshift on your own, is it an
essential skill that you should have on your side?
You should, and if you'd like more skill based Simplifieds, please do leave us a comment.
If there's more that you'd like to discuss about quickshifters or auto-blippers,
please do leave us a comment.
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Thank you so much for watching.