a suicide clutch is a rocker type foot pedel.it was designed for police who could stop in an intersection and use both hands for traffic control mainley.when you rock the clutch back with your foot,it stays there.the suicide part is when the spering wear out and the clutch wont stay dis-engaged.everytime you stop,you have to shift into neutral to put your foot down.it helps if the front brake works.mine didnt.evert timei came to a stop,i had to shift into neutral first. this interpitation is from the 50s.

 

IMHO a suicide shifter is one with the clutch on the shifter so that you need to take your hand off the bars to take off from a stop. I always called foot clutch assemblies to be just that and one where the shifter is behind the rider is a jockey set up...

 

I'm a foot clutch/hand shift rider. Have been since 1981 when I traded a van for my Dad's '78 FLH with a rocker clutch and a frame-mounted (so-called tank shift) 3 speed with reverse tranny. My '87 FLH has had either a rocker clutch and hand shift (mounted off the top motor mount) or its current suicide clutch and jockey shift. My Nightster will soon be a suicide clutch and jockey shift.

You can guess what I think about foot clutches and hand shifts.

Straight up - if you do not have the coordination to ride suicide & jockey, you really shouldn't be riding at all. That's not meant to be harsh, just reflect the reality that after a little bit of a "gee, this is different" learning curve, it pretty much becomes second nature. (But keep that to yourself 'cause if the masses find it out, the "coolth" factor will drop considerably!)

Suicide - You ride a chop with no front brake, pull up to an intersection on a hill, fail to get into neutral, and have to stop or you'll get smeared by cross traffic. Left foot is on clutch, right foot is on brake. See a problem?

 

New and improved way? The suicide clutch has been around longer than most folks on this forum.

It was named a suicide clutch because of the tendency for it to wear and engage when you least expected it at a stop.

 

Considering that all Harley's with a clutch up until 1952 had some form of hand shift/foot clutch operation, it's doubtful that in the original context, "suicide" described the simple act of shifting gears. Nothing the least bit suicidal about using a rocker clutch pedal.

Suicide clutch, or even less accurately "suicide shift" (courtesy of some TV program with a dysfunctional family) has entered the vernacular to mean any hand shift bike. The original meaning is as I described earlier, There are still a good number of guys with iron ***** racing the old WL's in AHRMA. If you get a chance to watch, it's great racing. Check out the bikes in the paddock, they'll all have suicide set-ups.

 

My point exactly....for most here, it could/would be a new and improved way to have an accident.

With the way cars drive (or rather, don't drive) these day, I can see no benefit (other than displaying it on Bike Night) to have one. The very idea that the OCC guys think they are cool is about all I need to see.

 

I've seen a whole lot of guys, independent of the clutch situation, that should not be riding.

 

The default position for a rocker clutch is heel, or disengaged. You stretch the spring by pushing it forward (toe). If the spring washers keeping tension on the rocker were loose or (somehow) worn, the pedal is pulled by the spring to the heel position. Anything else wouldn't be so safe.

 

Exactly. Had my rocker disengage the clutch a couple times whilst flying low somewhat in excess of the posted. Makes for a quick "WTF" when the engine suddenly revs up!

The rocker becomes a suicide when you remove the spring and the friction disc.

 

Lots of bikes had foot clutches, and rocker clutches. This doesn't make them "sucide" clutches.
A rocker clutch will engage when pushed and disengage when heeled the opposite way.
A foot clutch is just like your everyday car clutch. It actually poses no problem (well... almost ). Push it to disengage, release to engage.
For what I know, the term came around in the '60-'70 with bikes without a front brake.
This is when a foot clutch becomes a TRUE "suicide clutch".
This is because you only have a rear brake and, when stopping at an intersection or uphill/downhill stop, you had to put pressure on your right pedal to keep the bike stopped, and on your left pedal to disegnage the clutch... so that you don't have any remaining foot to keep the bike upright!
You have to engage the clutch, put the bike in neutral and then you have your left foot free.
Combine this to the fact that some vintage bikes had manual advance and manual mixture enrichment, and you can imagine why to ride these bikes a lot of skill was called for...
Today, by extension, any foot clutch is called a "suicide clutch".