Even if the world doesn’t move to an entirely electric-driven motorcycling future, I feel the clutch is doomed. Elsewhere in this magazine you can read about the Honda E-Clutch, an innovative way to eliminate the need to use the clutch on an otherwise standard motorcycle… the clutch is still there but it’s designed to be managed by the computer, not the rider, who still must change gears manually.
The E-Clutch is just another innovation chipping away at the clutch and its role in our lives… for experienced riders, it’s conceivable we’ve pulled that lever in a million times. For learners, it’s a nightmare device.
I was a child when I first used a clutch and it was very much hit-and-miss, with no real instruction on hand. I stalled the bike many, many times because the people around me didn’t have much concept of what it takes to learn to use a clutch.
Then, during Covid lockdowns, I became a riding instructor… and discovered the ONLY one-on-one training in the whole NSW compulsory learner course was clutch control. Turns out, for many people, the first time they ever need to use a clutch is also the first time they ride a motorcycle… so balance, twist throttle and clutch friction points, all on the same day.
No wonder so many of them go home with their brain feeling like it’s going to explode… yet it’s all second nature to me, and probably you too, gentle reader. That said, I’m no longer surprised when I see an “older” rider screw up an easy U-turn simply because of poor clutch control; while it’s easy to open the throttle and ride away from a set of traffic lights, for some reason there are many riders out there who can’t find the friction point of their clutch, get a fast idle going (2500-3500rpm, depending on the bike) and control their speed with the rear brake while looking where they want to go. If that’s you, go practise or get some training. You’ll be glad you did.
I come from a time when the only way to avoid a clutch was to buy a scooter… and no red-blooded teenager in 1983 was going to let that happen. No, an RD250LC for me, a screaming two-stroke that would stall or paw at the sky if throttle and clutch work wasn’t at least reasonable. No slipper clutches in those days either; get the downshifts wrong and the rear tyre would lock up momentarily when the engine speed wasn’t suited to the road speed. Actually, none of my four bikes has a slipper clutch today… but only one was made in the last decade…
A modern clutch combined with a quickshifter is a joy to use: full throttle shifting in a fraction of the time it took to bang through the gears, even if you were willing to do clutchless upshifts (load the lever and it’ll shift when you back off the throttle, works fine on any wet clutch/constant mesh gearbox, ubiquitous in modern motorcycle design).
Slipper clutches and quickshifters cost squillions when you wanted to add them to your race or track bike 30 years ago. These days they are often standard equipment or a few hundred as an optional extra. Racing improves the breed and mass adoption lowers the price — we all win.
But car drivers have dumped the manual clutch; only outliers like Phil James buy a new car with a manual transmission. After he did that he sent me a news article showing something like 98 per cent of new passenger car sales in Australia are now automatics, which I guess would include the 4WDs towing the caravans owned by the fat baby boomers who can’t fit on a motorcycle anymore.
Not much “driving” to that.
Can’t say I blame the caravaners too much these days; we elected people who caved in to the tabloid press who demonised fun driving and riding, so people are getting their jollies waking up hundreds of miles from their houses rather than enjoying the process of getting somewhere.
I will miss the clutch when it’s gone. There’s something about feeding the power of an engine from the crankshaft to the transmission manually that I find quite satisfying, possibly because it’s been close to an unavoidable part of riding for the 40 years I’ve been a motorcyclist. But I’m sure for new riders coming through, they won’t feel they’ve missed out on much when they never have to feel the indignity of stalling at traffic lights or hear an instructor shout “friction point” at them.
And they will probably be right.
– Nigel Paterson