| Author | Message | ||
     Kalsc |
Hey there, has anyone every come across a digital or LED gear indicator for an X1 Lightning? Cheers! | ||
| Ratbuell |
I think there are generic ones out there, you just have to google it. But. There are really only 2 gears on a motorcycle - the right gear, and the wrong one. If you're in the wrong one, you should know where you need to go to get to the right one...right? | ||
| Victory |
Ratbuell said it. And my first gear goes all the way up to around 6660ish anytime I want. | ||
| Upthemaiden |
I looked into it a bit a while ago, and didn't find anything productive. Most of the ones that popped up just had some kind of little magnetic switch that went near your shift lever and would count the up and down movement. Any time you had a missed shift or anything like that, it's going to be off a number. They do make some that will try to match your engine RPMs with your speed, and it does the math to determine which gear that puts you in, but that does involve tapping into your wiring and needing to install a sensor on one of the wheels since the X1 has an analog speedometer. I don't remember what it was that convinced me it wasn't worth it since it was years ago when I looked. Rat, you're right, but the one thing this bike does that no other bike I've ever owned has done, is let you infinitely try to shift into 6th gear or down past 1st gear. The number of times I try to shift into a non existent 6th gear on this bike every time I ride it would make a gear indicator worth every penny I spent on it haha. It'd be so nice to be on the highway and just look to see that I'm already in top gear, or to be slowing down to a redlight and know how many clicks I needed to be in 1st. I will also say... as someone fond of an occasionally wheelie, it would be pretty convenient to know which gear I'm in so you don't have to play that game of shifting down to 1st and then back to the gear you want(which... for a 97 S1 with a stock exhaust, is really just 1st....). | ||
| Ratbuell |
I figured out my Uly, fourth gear on the gauges, the needles are pointed in the same direction (speedo and tach) - if they were clocks, they would be showing the same time. Fifth gear, the tach is "lower" than the speedo - if the speedo were pointing at :50 after the hour, the tach is pointing at :45 past the hour. That's my giveaway there. S2? Gearing. 5th lugs going up hills as it is - at least, when I'm working with (or in sight of) the speed limits - so I don't usually bother trying to upshift (it has stock touring sprockets on it). CR, I just keep the tach in the middle, pointed at 12:00. Keeps the stator charging, and enough oil circulation to keep it cooled off. I haven't had the S1W on the road in forever (cracked header...really need to get that fixed this season...), but I'm sure I'll use a similar needle reference to my Uly method once it is. As for the downshifting...there's always the little extra stutter-click-hop between 2 and 1 (along with the quick N flash) that tells me I'm down. And...I'm usually too busy looking at idiot cagers...and goddamned deer...to worry too much about gauges anyway. And I do tend to count 2,3,4,5 as I upshift, in the back of my mind...so I just "recall" what the last number was when I go to shift something up or down again. | ||
| Kalsc |
OK, thanks for the feedback. The general consensus is then that there is no reliable gear indicator available for these bikes. Got it. | ||
| Upthemaiden |
One potential option if you don't mind more modern parts on an older bike, would be to find an aftermarket digital speedometer. It would have you tap into the spark plug wires for the odometer and use a magnetic sensor for the speedometer, then it would already have all of the information it needed to tell you what gear it's in. | ||
| Dave_02_1200 |
I agree with Rat on this one. If you are already in 5th and you are trying to shift into a higher gear, you are going way too fast to be looking at a screen anyway. In all the lower gears just pick the best one for the situation. |
