Are automatic transmissions in motorcycles the worst thing ever? Or will they save and expand the sport of riding? In this week's episode, Mark and Kevin answer audience questions on automatic transmissions, and DCT, and Honda's push to offer them more and more. They talk tech and philosophy. Tune in to learn what Mark and Kevin think about the rise of Automatic Transmissions, and its impact on motorcycling.
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00:00 Thanks for joining us for another episode of the Cycleworld podcast. I'm Mark Hoyer.
00:04 I'm here with Kevin Cameron, who just might make it in this business.
00:07 He's our technical editor. We're here today to talk about religion. No, it is a religion.
00:16 Motorcycling is a religion. And we're here to talk about automatic transmissions because people
00:24 sometimes take that as an attack on their religion. So before we do that, this is an extension of
00:33 a request from viewers in the comments on YouTube for topics that we might address. And while it
00:43 wasn't automatic transmissions in general, it was somebody asking for some information
00:48 or discussion about the automatic clutch that Honda, the e-clutch that Honda's introduced.
00:54 We've had a few. I wanted to go through a few of those before we dive headlong into automatics. But
01:00 we have one here that says, this is Magellan is space clouds. And he says, if I may suggest a
01:10 topic, I've always been fascinated by the early 1900s murder drone era of motorcycle racing. It'd
01:16 be fun to watch you guys discuss it. Well, that predates even you, doesn't it?
01:22 Not out of the question. There's some very good books. Don Enby's done a book on the drone era,
01:35 and we could certainly get something going together on that. We appreciate that. We'll
01:39 look into that. - Horrible board track and all splinters.
01:43 - Yep. Can we, Kevin wants, let's see, can we please get Kevin's take on a video that discussed
01:55 this 270 degree versus 285 degree crank info? And there's a crazy drag race. I don't know,
02:05 this one's a little scattered. More Kevin Cameron, that we can handle that. Let's go with that one,
02:10 on that one. Kevin, will you please give us a deep dive on Honda's new E-clutch? Is this technology
02:17 old CT90, et cetera, recluse like, which is the automatic, semi-automatic clutch, certainly like
02:25 basically weight engaged clutch or a real game changer? You are the man. Well, you are the man,
02:31 Kevin. - Well, I'm remembering that when
02:35 Dorna wanted MotoGP to run on 20 liters of gas,
02:41 which was their equivalent of the 1970s sputter and stall era in automobiles,
02:53 Ducati had the idea that instead of turning, having the throttle cancel some of the engine
03:02 braking as they approach the corner, why not just de-clutch, let the engine go to idle,
03:08 don't burn any fuel other than that, and then smoothly re-engage the clutch as soon as the
03:15 rider's ready to accelerate. And they weren't able to make it that smooth, so that technology
03:23 was abandoned. But there has been a lot of work done with systems that operate the clutch lever
03:34 and the throttle for the rider. And I think that's a useful endeavor in the sense that BMW
03:47 made the self-riding motorcycle, not because they think that one day we'll all be buried in our
03:52 social media as the world whizzes by, but because they wanted to know what it is that riders
04:00 actually do. So in one sense, the clutch enables some learning that has not happened before.
04:09 But I think one of the things that shows that the industry is actually paying attention is that
04:16 nearly every one of these automated systems also has a manual mode, because they know that
04:26 being an apostate from the religion in suggesting that motorcycles should stop going beep, beep,
04:34 beep, they know that there are people who are very sensitive about that.
04:41 Now, I would hope those people would realize, for example, that Formula One doesn't,
04:48 they don't have shift levers, they have paddles on the steering wheel.
04:54 And it's not even a steering wheel, it's a yoke. So everything that used to be pure and beautiful
05:02 is spoiled. Yes. Well, you know, that's absolutely true. I think, how many different versions of
05:11 automatics have we seen? We saw the Honda CB750A sort of circa, what is that? Probably '78, '79,
05:21 and that had a torque converter. It was kind of a traditional sort of automatic,
05:25 ate a lot of power. It was not... The Rabbit scooter before that had a three-element torque
05:31 converter. Yep. And you have had, you know, all the automatic clutch CT90s, you know,
05:40 all the things where, and you can still get them today, centrifugal to engage, you roll out,
05:46 it disengages, you shift the gear and away you go. So you're semi-automatic, but you don't have to
05:52 deal with the technique and refinement of operating your left hand in a very specific
05:59 way in coordination with the throttle. And what I was thinking about coming into this discussion was
06:08 what we're compensating for with a clutch and a transmission is basically, it's the quirks of the
06:17 internal combustion engine that always has to be running. It has to be spinning. It has to be
06:23 decoupled from the drive wheel in a way that doesn't disturb our Zen, our religious fervor and
06:34 in the earlier days, earliest days, they called it a free engine clutch because
06:40 the things were all direct drive. When you wanted to get going, you footed it
06:46 and pulled the compression release. And if the damp rag in the, what was called a carburetor
06:55 or an evaporator, if the damp rag wasn't too wet, the engine would fire. Because you know,
07:02 in the early days, they didn't have spray carburetors where the pressure difference
07:08 between the throat of the carburetor and the atmosphere causes liquid to be drawn up from
07:13 the float bowl and it actually sprays out into the airstream. That dates from before 1900.
07:20 Yeah. Well, they didn't have, some of them didn't have intake cams. It was an atmospheric intake.
07:25 Yeah, just sucked it open like a reed valve. And in fact, that first winner of the,
07:34 what was it, the 1911? No, the 1907 TT. One of the modifications he made was to install a
07:46 stronger spring on that atmospheric intake valve to make it work better at higher RPM.
07:54 And so you can't stop these motorcycles. No matter what you make, they'll mess with it.
08:01 But in those early days, it was believed that the motorcycle had only one role, which was to give
08:09 people who were less than wealthy an affordable taste of motoring.
08:14 And for that reason, they tried to keep the motorcycle as simple as possible. No multi-speed
08:22 transmission, no two-wheel brakes, no clutch. And then for the 1911 TT, the powers that were
08:33 declared that motorcycles would have to grow up now. So they would all have to have a variable
08:42 speed drive of some kind. Those early motorcycles could go maybe as fast as you would care to pedal
08:49 a bicycle. But because you couldn't upshift, the engine was all done at that point. That was your
08:55 top speed, 24 miles an hour. But for the 1911 TT, all kinds of variable drives were invented,
09:03 such as the Zenith Gradua. And you pulled these levers to vary the pulley ratio. And
09:13 the Indians showed up with a two-speed gear transmission and a proper clutch.
09:20 And that transmission was shifted by a dog ring, which not so long ago, people were hailing as
09:29 an innovation thrusting into the future. And Indian finished what? One, two, three, I think
09:38 that year. They crushed them. And the Isle of Man TT. So yes, you're absolutely right. The
09:48 shortcomings of the internal combustion engine are that it has to be running in order to produce any
09:53 torque, and it has to be off idle in order to produce enough torque to get moving. So you need
09:58 to be able to make a transition with that left hand. You've snicked it into gear, and now you
10:04 have to feel for the engagement point, which comes naturally to a person with a little experience.
10:11 And it's not hard to learn. And feed throttle. And once you've done a few embarrassing
10:18 bucking to a stop episodes, you're cured of it forever. And you will be a proper motorcyclist,
10:27 in that view. Well, yeah, my son has recently transitioned, well, last year from a
10:33 CRF 110 with an auto clutch to a CRF 125 F with a regular clutch. And for a while,
10:41 because we're riding on dirt, he was utilizing, the friction zone he was utilizing was the rear
10:48 knobby on dirt. Yes, that'll do it. It's a good design. It makes a ton of torque. It has a very
10:56 low first gear. And he'd let the clutch go. One other learning for him was that on the CRF 110,
11:03 first gear was one up, and then all the ensuing gears were up. So that when you pushed down all
11:09 the way, you would naturally go into a neutral, which was fine. And so he didn't realize he was
11:15 trying to start in second gear. And so that does give you a little taste of technique, right? Like
11:22 you have to learn to slide a little bit more, but he just was letting her go and spinning the tire.
11:26 But now, as you say, after a little bit of playing around, here he is, a clutch utilizing
11:33 motorcycle riding kid, and it's not that hard. And yet it remains a big barrier. And that's,
11:39 you know, electrics are, let's see, I don't even know where to begin here. Where do I begin? We
11:47 can talk about electrics. You know, we have another publication in our group called UTV Driver,
11:53 and we play around with UTVs, which up until very recently were all sort of modified snowmobile
12:00 drives. It was all CVT, rubber CVT, and it was controlled by centrifugal force on the primary
12:07 and working against the spring and some ramps on a secondary that would give you your ratios. And it
12:13 was very simple and all those things drone, just as any CVT equipped motorcycle has and scooters.
12:21 They have that single gear kind of, and everybody, everybody with the religion is like,
12:27 that's horrible. I want to shoot that because of how it sounds. And it's like, well, yeah, but
12:31 when I go on the UTV side and we, we, we do tests with those people, you read things written by
12:37 those people who don't have a gear mentality. They've never had the expectation that part of
12:44 the experience and oral drama and riding the torque curve and, you know, picking your shifts
12:51 and surfing that into the future, grabbing gears is part of the experience. They don't care.
12:57 Yes.
12:59 They just don't care. And CVTs serve a really good, they do great in those units. And so,
13:05 you know, on the motorcycle side, it is a religion. You take away exhaust noise with an
13:11 electric and everybody gets up in arms, but electrics are actually, I mean, aside from still,
13:16 you know, the challenge of packaging enough energy density into a battery that doesn't
13:20 weigh 500 pounds to give you a range that you would expect. Other than that, they're actually
13:26 great. I mean, the lightweights with changeable batteries and, and, you know, riding around town,
13:33 you don't even have to think about the transmission. You just have some brakes
13:38 and you have a, you have go and you have stop. And it's.
13:41 That's wonderful. Sure. And this actually is what all of the electronics that we put onto
13:48 IC engine powered motorcycles are trying to do. They try to turn the engine torque
13:55 into something like an electric motor because the tire doesn't like sudden surprises.
14:01 The tire wants to just roll along the road with its tread stretched to the very limit of its grip
14:10 and be held at that point accurately. Because if it suddenly starts to slip,
14:15 you can have a high side, or you can have a wheelie, or you can have all these things that
14:20 you don't want. So the electrics are not to be sneezed at because they give a target to aim at
14:29 for one thing. And for many people, they solve a problem. That's what engineering is supposed to do.
14:34 It's supposed to enable us humans to do what we want. And if you want a clutch-free riding,
14:44 then you should have it. And let's just trust that in the future.
14:50 Oh no, man, just, oh no, no, the very existence of automatic motorcycles is an affront to me.
14:55 Yeah, well.
14:56 That's what happened, right? But that's what happens on the internet.
14:58 Sure it does.
14:59 Like you introduce an automatic, you do something like Honda's seven-speed DCT transmission dual
15:06 clutch introduced on, what was that introduced on? Was it, that was the NC700X, I think.
15:14 Okay.
15:14 Was where that was introduced. And it extended, it's been on the Goldwing since 2017, 2018.
15:22 And it's amazing. On the Goldwing, it's perfect. I mean, you have, it's nearly perfect, let's say,
15:30 but what you get is you have seven speeds to narrow, you get that extra ratio to narrow the
15:35 lower gear gaps. So you don't have that one, two spread that causes some shaking and an engine that
15:44 makes 103 foot pounds of torque at 1000 RPM, 1200 RPM. So I think a peak around 108 foot pounds.
15:56 But it's already tremendous at 900 RPM. It's just wonderful.
16:01 Yeah. And I tell you on that bike, and I'm not alone, like I think I would pick that. And I think
16:10 75, I want to say the quote from Honda recently was somewhere in the 80% take rate range. So the
16:17 80% of the buyers of the Goldwing are taking that and a not insignificant portion of the
16:22 Africa twin buyers are taking it. It's a really good system. When I say nearly flawless, the only
16:29 thing that I find as a person who's done 14.7 billion U-turns low speed for photo shoots over
16:38 my career, where we ride through the same corner a million times plus is that it doesn't know
16:45 what you're going to do in that sense. So when you're at a low speed and you're operating the
16:52 clutch yourself and you're on the throttle and you have control of the rear brake, I can go bang
16:57 right to the lock on almost any motorcycle and just come around. And with that, you have to be a
17:04 little more careful because you are losing that element of fine control. And if you've been doing
17:09 it a long time, you have that, but otherwise, man, bang, bang, bang. You just let that thing go
17:16 in tour mode. I love it. Like you're crossing the intersection, you're in fifth gear because
17:22 the torque, it just goes, and you just glide away. It's really nice. And why is this such a horrible
17:29 affront to us? Why? Well, again, my uncle drove a 48 Buick and it had Dynaflow. And with Dynaflow,
17:38 as you were saying before about the engine goes into a certain RPM and the vehicle accelerates
17:45 and the engine sound never changes. And a lot of people find that something's missing.
17:54 But with that Dynaflow, my uncle would press down the pedal and the engine would go to a
17:59 certain RPM and the car would try to catch up to it. And if he wanted to accelerate harder,
18:04 he'd press down more. The engine RPM would rise to a new level. And now we would accelerate a bit
18:09 faster. But a lot of these devices are application specific. For example, there are ships made that
18:19 have omnidirectional thrusters, one at the bow and one at the stern. The ship can turn in its
18:26 own length. It can go sideways. It can do all kinds of crazy stuff. You would need a tug, a set
18:34 of tugboats for if you had a normal propeller and a rudder at the rear. And fortunately,
18:44 those marine people are not fussy about this. Well, we'll use this ship because it can do what
18:50 we want it to do. We'll use this ship because it costs less. It's application specific. So,
18:57 if you've got to have a manual shift motorcycle with a clutch, you can have it.
19:05 And if you want to go back and forth between modes, those modes are offered. So, I don't see
19:15 that. I mean, it's sort of like a, I suppose it's like a church that has a, one of those screens
19:25 out front that can change from one denomination to another. Oh, well, it's nine o'clock. Now we're
19:32 Lutheran. Kind of like multitasking. But I don't, if you want to be a purist, be a purist.
19:44 If you want to try something new and know that it will let you do it the old way,
19:49 that's available. And that seems very attractive to me. Yeah. DCT gives you that. You have, you
19:56 know, a trigger and a thumb thingy, Bob, and you can go full, you can go full automatic. You don't
20:02 have to think about it. You have seven gears, which I guess adding gears makes it more,
20:07 makes it more like a DCT, right? It's just, it's a DCT with bumps on it. Or excuse me,
20:13 I mean a CVT. It's a CVT with bumps in it because it's seeking to give you enough ratios to keep
20:19 that RPM in a relatively narrow band. And so that your engine sound will not offend the neighbors.
20:26 Yeah. And then you, but you can like, and, and you know, the programming is actually,
20:30 is great. Like on a Goldwing, uh, you go to sport mode, it'll hold the RPM up. But even in tour,
20:37 if, if you go charging into a corner, like you start riding hard and you're leaning the bike
20:43 and you're really hitting it, you go hard on the brakes into a corner. It automatically starts to
20:49 carry a engine braking RPM higher. It just does it for you. It's really nice. So, um, you know,
20:57 a Prilia 850 Mana that had a CVT in it and, um, really, you know, if you, yeah, it, it droned,
21:07 it wasn't, it, it doesn't satisfy that, that sensation and sound that we seem to cherish in
21:17 this world. But, uh, I have to object though, because when, when I first was at a, uh, a racetrack
21:28 where Mark Marquez was performing, I saw that he was doing things very differently.
21:35 Uh, the old way, the Mike Hale would way was to act as though there were a steel rod through
21:44 your sternum that went down through the gas tank. And you would then slide your butt off the seat
21:51 toward the inside of the corner and drop your knee toward the pavement. That was the accepted way
21:59 that was styling for a lot of people because they weren't racers and had never been to a racetrack,
22:05 but they liked the look. And I saw that, uh, Marquez wasn't doing this. Instead, he was moving
22:13 his whole body sideways off the motorcycle, as far as his outer arm would permit. And finally,
22:22 in the, at the apex, his arm would stretch, say if he's turning left from the throttle,
22:28 tight across the gas tank to his body, which was as far off to the inside as it could be.
22:35 And so when I had the opportunity to speak to him, I congratulated him on sending that Mike
22:41 Hale would look to the museum. Who is this Mike Hale would he said, yes, that's what he had had
22:52 an adult manager since the age of 12. And no one had uttered the name Michael Hale would.
23:01 Well, if, if, if Mark Marquez doesn't remember Mike Hale would, what is our fate in this world?
23:08 You know, like how will we be remembered? YouTube, of course.
23:11 That's why it's up to each of us to enjoy life because we, uh, we can't direct it much
23:22 in any other direction. If it comes out well and people think, yeah, he wasn't a bad guy.
23:27 Uh, then you've done all right socially. But other than that, if you're not enjoying it yourself,
23:35 what's the point? And yeah, I always thought my, you know, my epitaph would be something along the
23:39 lines of sometimes he improved things. I thought that, you know, that's a reasonable goal.
23:43 After seven years, he did install the shelf in the upstairs bathroom that his wife had asked for.
23:51 So good one. But at any rate, um, I would, I would urge the purists that, uh,
24:02 these new technological accomplishments offer fresh possibilities that you might like.
24:09 And so it can be very attractive to be a purist and to say no to everything since 1860.
24:18 Um, but you're denying yourself things. It's like being extremely wealthy. All that money in the
24:26 bank is wonderful experiences that you could have had, but didn't. So I'm in favor of new experiences.
24:36 And, and I think that the fact that racing has had to adopt the, uh, seamless transmission
24:44 and that formula one doesn't have a gear shift lever. Um, I think those things indicate that
24:55 there are other ways to do these things besides the classical way. It's okay to enjoy the classical
25:03 way and to continue to do that if it pleases you, but don't deny yourself something that could
25:08 please you more. Right. And don't deny others. That's the thing is, you know, the inherent joy
25:16 of picking up your feet on a motorcycle and turning the throttle and using your balance.
25:23 Like when BMW did the self ride into self balancing motorcycle, I'm like, you're taking away
25:28 the, the core satisfaction and joy of riding because balance is, is what it that's for me,
25:36 it's where it's at, right? It's being able to balance and do that stuff. You can automatics,
25:41 all these other things allow people to turn the throttle and feel that thing go and, and to engage
25:47 your balance and ride away. And why would we deny people that I want more people to enjoy that my
25:54 entire career has been writing enthusiastically and critically and talking about motorcycles
26:01 expressly at the end of the day to share the many varies the varied joy that you get from riding
26:09 and an automatic allow it eases that entry. We, if you can establish balance and you can establish
26:17 braking and turning the throttle without all this, Oh, it's got to idle. It's going to stall it. You
26:22 know, I mean, imagine learning to ride on a kickstart motorcycle and stalling in an intersection.
26:28 It's a nightmare. Right. You know, so I mean, why deny others? So I, I fundamentally agree with that.
26:37 You mentioned, uh, what I fundamentally agree with what you said about like, why, why that that's me
26:43 agreeing, Kevin, you, you just sort of offhandedly mentioned, mentioned the seamless transmission in
26:51 MotoGP. I think that's worth talking about because we have absolutely the best riders in the world
26:57 looking to do, I mean, I mean, ideally, I guess we would say utilize the contact patch and vector
27:07 inertia, all those good words to a hundred percent in every direction and any disturbance,
27:15 any disturbance of braking, like, Oh, I'm not being smooth. Any disturbance of throttle
27:22 application or driveline lash applying the throttle exiting the corner of upshifting
27:28 can disrupt traction. Beautiful little tiny contact patch that we're using to
27:36 all pulled out of shape by those forces. Oh, and seamless transmissions are, are part of,
27:45 of that. So maybe you can tell us a little bit, like what would make a seamless transmission
27:50 different from a DCT or certainly vastly different from a CDT? Well, first thing is that, uh,
27:59 Dorna, the FIM went out of their way to, to ban DCT in MotoGP. And, uh, this is what
28:07 sanctioning bodies always do. They, they have a set of, of little cards with handles on them,
28:14 cost too much, unpopular with spectators, bad for your health. And they automatically respond to all
28:23 kinds of novelties in that way. And so I got sucked in like everyone else. I thought to myself,
28:32 Oh, well, um, if DCTs eliminate shift delay, let's see how much that adds up to. And if there's 20
28:40 laps and, but no, that's not what riders were interested in. Here's what happens in a normal
28:46 transmission in order to shift from one gear to another, you first have to pass into neutral,
28:53 which means that nothing happening at the rear wheel, you're just coasting.
28:57 So that's a waste of time. And then you shift into the next gear that you want
29:03 and you engage the clutch and there may be a clunk. Well, what riders wanted to eliminate
29:12 and would, Freddie Spencer, for example, would hang on in first gear rather than shift
29:19 in order to avoid that clunk. Um, and his magnesium crank cases only lasted 360 miles,
29:29 but, uh, a seamless transmission is like a drag transmission in that when you shift,
29:38 you shift to the next gear without shifting into a neutral. That is you're making a double
29:45 engagement. This is the thing that people who are assembling gearboxes are frightened to death of.
29:51 But in the case of a drag transmission, the backside of the engaging dogs are cut off at 45
29:59 degrees so that when the drive is taken up by the next gear, it reverses the gear that was driving
30:09 and those 45 degree faces knock that gear out of engagement. So you don't have a double engagement.
30:16 You, you simply have shifted to the next gear and there is no interruption in that smooth flow of
30:21 power to the rear tire other than the clunk from the fact that the engine's RPM has been,
30:28 has dropped, assuming we're accelerating. So the seamless transmissions, Honda's, I think,
30:35 has a great big shaft on one. One of the gearbox shafts is big enough to have a lot of little
30:41 levers and wonderful gizmos inside. And they all have a system that works and they now work
30:49 up and down the gearbox. Both. I think, uh, I think wonderful gizmos is, is on the sign under HRC.
30:56 It's just real small. It's hard to read. And it's courses. It's Kanji. We can't read it. That's it.
31:01 With a bunch of Japanese, but wonderful gizmos. They had a special, a special guy who was
31:07 the only person on the team who was, uh, cleared to, to look at the parts.
31:13 And supposedly some of them had to be replaced every day because they were small and they were
31:19 transmitting a lot of stress. So, but, uh, there turned out to be several ways to do this. Formula
31:27 one cars and other kinds of race cars had seamless for a while before it came to Moto GP. But the
31:34 nice thing about this is it allows you to accelerate in a corner and to upshift wherever you
31:42 want, rather than holding on and pushing into the red zone of the tachometer in order to avoid
31:49 an upsetting upshift at a point where your tire is really working hard.
31:56 Well, you would alter your gearing sometimes because you felt that the benefit of, of holding
32:01 the gear in a certain section had enough of a payoff that you could sacrifice the ratio
32:07 somewhere else. And that's one of those things that when you see the rider, uh, surrounded by the,
32:13 the disciples, that topics of that kind are being discussed. Okay. What are we going to do about
32:19 turn five? And again, they're trying to solve a problem. They're not trying to violate someone's
32:27 principles. Uh, the, the seamless transmission, um, is it sounds strange. First time I heard it,
32:40 uh, do this one thing here comes, um, a Honda on the, the little straightaway at Indianapolis.
32:49 And, um, the rider wanted to downshift and it just went, no, no, no, no. And it dropped three gears.
32:58 And it was, uh, not like those records, those 33 and a third RPM records used to be able to buy
33:09 of sounds of the TT. Yeah. But then, uh, the quick shifter was a step in that direction.
33:17 And I don't think that people speak of quick shifters as being, um, violations of tradition.
33:25 They're simply a method of cutting off the ignition so that you can make a clutch and shift
33:32 without as much damage to your transmission dogs. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, a clutchless sub shift,
33:40 you know, you, you, uh, before the quick shifter before the, the basic ignition kill, where you
33:45 didn't, you couldn't adjust the timing. It was sort of better in the upper gears. And then you
33:50 would use the clutch for the lower gears. Uh, before that you were just doing it yourself.
33:55 You were preloading the shift lever going up the straight and then, you know, unweighting the dogs,
34:01 getting that friction to go away and then snick into the next one. And, um, hopefully you had
34:06 somebody to look at your gearbox after a few races and make sure everything was still nice.
34:11 And you didn't get that shift rejection and of things floating around as you're going into
34:17 turn one at Willow Springs. Um, yeah, what you talk about here, um, it, it does remind me of
34:24 the kind of get off my lawn moment that I shared with, with Don Kanae, our former road test center,
34:31 when, when traction control was coming in and it relates to, you know, automatic shifting and,
34:35 and all the other things that help us, uh, essentially go faster, safer, and, and improve
34:43 the lap time. And we're still in control, but it was kind of a get off our lawn moment. It was
34:47 dang, we've spent our entire career learning how to apply the throttle at a corner speed and an
34:59 exit speed and to pick the bike up a certain amount and to control wheel spin. And did we
35:05 run it higher in the RPM range so that the torque curve was declining so that we, we had better
35:12 can be like all the things that you were doing up in your head were suddenly something you could
35:17 push on a dashboard. And now like the graphic on like a KTM adventure bike, they have a graphic
35:23 that shows you like how much step out you want. Like, Oh yeah, I'll take about that much. And
35:28 it's this beautiful graphic. It's just like, yeah, that looks good. And that's your amount
35:32 of step out that you get exiting corner. And, and we did, we're like, you know, it is, it is a little
35:36 disappointing that you've spent all this time doing it, but again, it's a huge improvement
35:44 and it allows people to point. Yeah. It's a, it's allows people to do what we've always wanted to do
35:50 in the seamless transmission. Like, I mean, I can rev match a downshift, you know, I've been doing
35:54 this for, I don't know, many hundreds and hundreds of thousands of miles. I can rev match a downshift
36:00 and I can go into a corner and my braking as I'm flipping the throttle is generally not disturbed.
36:05 And I can do all that and get it down to the apex and generally haven't lost the front that much.
36:10 And I'm not the fastest guy, but I'm not the slowest guy either. And, but you know what, man,
36:17 Ducati before any of Ducati's current TC systems are knockout. Yeah. I mean, all of them have
36:25 improved, but you basically like you get, you just, you don't even know it's working anymore.
36:31 Kind of, you just, you peel the thing, you're citing your exit and you roll that in and you
36:37 just feel really good and the bike's doing its thing and you're, you're spinning out and it's
36:41 not a big disruption. It's a pure freaking joy. Well, there, there, there are now these,
36:48 these calls and some of them are coming from Casey Stoner, a retired rider, uh, to get off my list,
36:57 to rip out all the electronics, rip off all the aero, uh, all of the electronics that are on those
37:05 motorcycles and all of the aero is there to solve specific problems. It's not there because someone
37:13 is trying to annoy Casey Stoner or someone is trying to make it so that any fool can do a
37:21 winning lap on a MotoGP bike. It's not there because those guys can't ride. Yes. Right.
37:28 It's not, they can, they really can. And they're using the tools that are available to them.
37:35 To do the top, the lap. Yeah. So that being that I still love bagger racing because it doesn't have
37:41 it'll come, it'll come and then they'll probably, who knows what will be next, but it will be,
37:49 well, imagine the dynamic aero that you could get. I mean, what could you do with a
37:53 refrigerator size? I mean, wonderful, wonderful stuff. But I think that, uh,
38:02 I don't think anyone is implying that it's easy for a MotoGP rider to do the laps that they're
38:08 doing. I think that these people have to be extremely adaptable when they put on a fairing
38:15 that suddenly is trying to suck, not only suck the motorcycle down onto the track, but also
38:22 increase its lean angle. The rider has to compensate for that. And I think that, uh,
38:30 acting as though the riders aren't displaying skill is an insult.
38:37 I just, I can't see that. I think that, uh, each of these innovations is intended to solve
38:47 problems that come up over and over and over again. And, uh, therefore if the sanctioning
38:56 body decides to eliminate some of these things, that's a political matter. It's not a technical
39:03 matter. And of course that's their sphere, their political actors.
39:08 I mean, how many times, you know, when you sit, when you were saying all that about,
39:12 you know, the riders are good and they were solving technical problems, there are,
39:16 there seem to be an infinite number of things that pop to mind. But one thing that popped to
39:20 mind for me was screamer, two strokes versus big bang. And you know, what are we solving? Like,
39:28 no, we, we really don't need power bands that spit riders off and break collarbones and do that.
39:35 Let's, we're trying to give the rider control of the motorcycle, which is all an automatic
39:42 transmission on a street bike is doing for a normal citizen. We're giving them more control
39:50 over the motorcycle. Isn't that grand? Now, uh, years ago, uh, monks sitting at long tables
39:58 copied classical manuscripts in long hand and they spent hours making beautiful multicolored
40:06 illuminated capitals. The books were beautiful. Then along came a movable type and all that beauty
40:17 was pushed to one side in favor of more people being able to have books. And it went on with
40:26 manual type setting for years until the line of type machine was invented, which cast and added
40:33 to the rack, a whole line of type. And all those people who had been extremely dexterous at setting
40:42 type had to either just get on with it and learn to run the line of type machine or open a Carvel
40:51 stand. And this kind of thing happens constantly. Well, we have people who want to set type and
40:58 they're welcome. They may have a little poetry magazine and it pleases them to set the type
41:04 manually. I think they should just do that. That's fine. Absolutely. That's a, that's a mode.
41:11 That's a mode on your handlebar. This reminds me of our very own business, Kevin, you know,
41:20 uh, hundreds of thousands of print copies. The business wasn't there. We moved. We are digital.
41:27 We are making a podcast. We're making videos. There's all the things that have changed. And
41:31 as I will, I want to make the print magazine, I would love to do a short run quarterly, uh,
41:37 six monthly, whatever. Like I think it would be really nice to do. And there would be a certain
41:42 amount of audience to want that. Uh, there isn't a business there and, but it sounded like,
41:48 you know, you stop making the magazine. It is, it was a religious part of our lives. And then
41:54 the chorus out there, it sounded like the cuneiform guys pissed off at the papyrus guys.
42:01 You know what I mean? Like, no, we're, we're digital, right? Like we have to be digital
42:05 because the mass audience is digital. Like we're, we're using phones. That's what everybody
42:09 does on a mass, mass influence basis. That's where it's at. And it's just things.
42:16 Let's not go out of business to be traditional.
42:19 We have, what do we do? We want to access the biggest possible audience. And if there's an
42:24 artful box that I can put a quarterly magazine into or a by year, you know, whatever. Yeah,
42:31 let's do that. But it's, it's just, uh, let us enjoy our creative pursuits the way we'd like to.
42:42 Certainly.
42:43 And let's use the tools available to us to enjoy them. And that, you know, um, automatics, uh,
42:50 automatics are almost for everybody in cars. Cars are much different. The cars do not, are not
42:55 the foundation of love. I mean, in, in the, in the American market, certainly in a developed market
43:01 like us, um, motorcycles are a love object. It's the first thing is love. You just gotta have it.
43:07 And everything else is, can be a secondary justification. Like, oh, I can get through
43:12 traffic faster. It gets good mileage. The insurance maybe is lower. The tire, there's
43:16 only two tires and, uh, there, you know, it's, I don't know, whatever you make up
43:21 to justify getting it. Um, it is, it is love. It's different than, than cars. Maybe automatics
43:29 won't completely take over. Maybe they will. What does it matter? Buy what you like and enjoy.
43:36 And if electrics are coming, uh, first of all, we don't have any evidence that suggests they are
43:43 numbers of sales, but if they are, uh, if governments one day are going to say no more
43:50 IC engines after this date, um, are people going to say that doesn't, I'm going to sit in a rocker
43:59 on my front porch and look grumpy. That would be a blow up move because
44:05 you want to, you want a lot of instant torque and you want to feel that it is, I mean, okay.
44:09 It doesn't go bad, but it does, uh, it does satisfy that movement and it does satisfy balance.
44:16 And it does put a smile on your face. We solve some technical issues there. There'd be
44:21 no reason to not use them. Yep. All right. Well, that's it for today, folks, automatic transmissions.
44:31 No one's forcing you. Uh, thanks for tuning in, uh, like subscribe, hit the bell.
44:38 Also jump in the comments, tell us what you think of automatics and continue to give us topics.
44:45 We did not address the Honda e-clutch, so maybe we can address the Honda e-clutch because it is a
44:50 very interesting system and it is different than anything that's come before it. Yeah. So, uh,
44:58 Yeah, we'll see you next time, folks. Thanks for joining us.