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Shifting alternatives
Hello all. My name is Dave, but my friends call me D-Bub. It's been a while since I have visited this site, but I am still riding. I do close to 10,000 miles a year on my 2001 harley Ultra with the Leamen kit installed. I bought the bike in 2011 with 9,000 miles on it. The bike was converted by the first owner in 2001 or 2002. I am the third owner of this rig, and am happy to say I ride the wheels off that thing. Over 80,000 miles on it now, and still going. So a little back ground on me first. AKA left leg due to being hit on a dirt road in WV by a speeding pickup truck. Crushed my left leg off right then and there. No cell service, over an hour for EMS to get to me, basically two hours before I got my chopper ride to UVA. Three days in a drug induced coma, woke up to have my best friend looking at me and telling me what I knew in my heart already. First question I was ask if I recalled what happened, I responded, "yea, the SOB hit me". Second question was was I still going to ride...my answer was "F#ck yea"! To get to the point I got back to riding as soon as I could. Now those of us that are AK, (above knee) know that there are some issues with shifting. We have a prosthetic legs, but no ability to move the knee, the ankle, or the foot, in order to control the shifter. Now I have a prosthetic leg with the ottobock 3R80 knee. Nothing fancy, no computer control on this one, and I have managed to find a way to shift my Harley with no trouble at all. I had the pingle system. every part failed and left me stuck on the side of the road more then once. I know it works for some, just not for me. The last straw was when the shifter it's self shorted out. I made it to my shop, slipping the clutch and riding along in third gear. My Buddy met me there, and my mechanic found out the unit had failed. My socket will not let me even get my leg close to the shifter, it hits the side of the tank, so the idea was born. If I can't get the leg to the shifter, bring the shifter out to the leg. So, that's just what we started to do. Into the used parts room we went. We came up with a shifter peg that was a tad longer and thicker then stock. Then we dug up another left floor board, and some PVC pipe. So, now my Buddy hammered the PVC onto the longer and fatter toe shifter, then my floorboard was moved out about two inches, but it was not enough. The used floorboard we dug up was cut with a plasma cutter to mach the outside radius of the floorboard and welded on to it. So if you can picture a piece of PVC pipe that sticks out a few inches past the lower, and a floorboard and a half on the left side, you understand what I got. Now, to use it...well, that a trick. I had to learn to be able to use my hip to swing my leg up to get on the toe shifter in order to downshift. Just the simple act of lifting my foot, and the foot falls back and fits right onto the heal shifter. So in essence, I still shift like everyone else. If you are unable to wear a prosthetic leg, I would look into the B&B shifter kit. It's mechanical, nothing to short out. I don't have any pics on the computer, but if anyone has any interest in my set up, I would be more then happy to show what I have and how it works. And as for problems with it, it's been about 5 years now and it's never given my a seconds worth of trouble. Good luck and keep riding.
D-Bub
Originally Posted by headheaded
