this thing looks cool as ****...anybody got one?

http://widowmakerindustries.com/

 

That's the first one I've ever seen. I can't say that I'd be comfortable with it. I drove a jockey shift bike years ago and it's not for me.

 

I have been running foot clutch & hand shifts in just about every variation there is, including a short stint with a 1972 XLCH right side jockey lever, left side suicide clutch, left side throttle. The only variation I didn't care for was the clutch lever on the shift lever; it just didn't feel right. Too many times on take-off and things getting a little squirrely due to road conditions/rate of acceleration, I wanted that left hand on the bars, and not on that combo-lever.

Just my take; YMMV.

 

I only rode a buddies tank shift a time or two, and loved it, but it had a foot clutch. Like pococj said, there's times where you want both hands on the bars....taking it off to bump up or down a gear is one thing, having to keep your hand there to handle clutch duties would suck.
The places that make the style you showed offer foot cluth for no much more...you'd still get the visual appeal, and keep the safty factor there

 

re: foot clutch

I guess there's times when you want both feet on the ground, too.

I dunno.

 

Yeah, but that's usually when one is already stopped, and it's easy enough to put the bike in neutral and put both feet down. If you're trying to come to a quick stop and/or evasive maneuvering with the pictured shifter, the rider doesn't have the option of using both hands while holding clutch lever in.

 

LOL! Story-time -

Rode with a rocker clutch on a '78 FLH and my '87 Sloptail. A rocker clutch stays in whatever position you put it, unlike a suicide clutch. Anyway, the Sloptail rocker was a Taiwan Tedd repop and was not very well made. It broke a couple times and I finally gave up on it, installing a suicide clutch pedal. First time THE MAMA and I went for a ride I forgot to tell her to only talk into my right ear, especially at a stop. (Right ear is "deafer" than the left - 40 years of riding wind noise and drag pipes.) We stopped at a light, my right foot on the ground and left foot depressing the clutch, bike still in gear. She leaned over to the left to say something, the bike started going over to the left, and I had to grab a big handful of front brake, dump the clutch and drop my foot to keep us upright. Bike stalled, of course.

Now I have a Baker transmission with the N-1 shift top; neutral is at the bottom of the pattern instead of between 1st and 2nd. Makes it easy to find the big ol' N when needed.

OK, tale done. Time for philosophizing, LOL. If you want to do the hand shift/foot clutch thing, do it. You've asked a reasonable question about a particular set-up and gotten responses. Nothing is "un-doable", and nothing is 100% safe. But then if it was it'd just be boring.

 

thanks for all the good inputs, gennamens.

 

All of my first several Harleys were hand shifters with foot clutch.Always loved shifting from second to third hearing the motor lug down.The first foot shifter I climbed onto was really hard to get used to.Never want to go back!

 

An interesting design- I've seen mods like it for physical limitation riders.

I'm an old fashioned guy with my Pan-