Tech: How HM are bringing the shifter/blipper to the masses
HM Quickshifter’s aftermarket blipper/ shifter brings race tech to road riders
‘It’s the kind of philosophy used in aircraft’
The transfer of technology from the track to the road has seen an evergrowing number of new models come with quickshifters as standard. And even if your bike doesn’t have one it’s tech that can easily be retrofitted thanks to companies such as HM Quickshifters, who have just upgraded their high-end Stand Alone Blipper Shifter.
The simplest systems only work on upshifts, cutting the spark to the engine to briefly interrupt its power delivery. That unloads the pressure from the dog clutches in the transmission, allowing them to slide and engage the next ratio. On most shifters a switch mounted in the gear linkage interrupts the spark when the lever is moved but the HM Quickshifters systems use a strain gauge instead. The idea is that the gauge monitors the load on the linkage to allow more flexibility in programming when the shifter needs to be engaged.
Many modern up-and-down quickshifters auto-blip the throttle to work on downshifts as well as upshifts, using the rideby-wire throttles that are the norm on the latest bikes. During deceleration the forces through the gearbox travel in the opposite direction – from the wheel to the engine, rather than from the engine to the wheel – so the revs need to rise to unload the dog clutches. That’s what an up-anddown quickshifter does, briefly opening the throttle in response to the gear lever’s movement, even while you have the twistgrip in the closed position.
“I set about making a system that would be as safe as possible,” says HM Quickshifters founder Gareth Hopkins. “Having designed air-to-air missile guidance systems, I understand how to make robust electronics. It is physically disconnected from the throttle circuit under all normal circumstances. If the user issues a command, the system goes through hundreds of self-tests in a few hundred nanoseconds. If all of those tests are passed, it sets a ‘dead man timer’ – if it says ‘this operation should take no longer than 50 milliseconds’ it sets the timer at 51 milliseconds. So, when it puts itself into the throttle circuit, if anything does go wrong – and it shouldn’t – the timer, which is on a completely separate circuit, runs out and hands control back to the rider.
“It’s the kind of philosophy that’s used in fly-by-wire systems of commercial aircraft. You can’t have those electronics failing, and if they do you must have automatic redundancy.”
For its latest 2021 iteration, the ‘Pro’ version of the Stand Alone
Blipper Shifter system – which costs £600 ★ VAT compared to the £500 ★ VAT of the simpler ‘Lite’ model – adds launch control and pit lane speed limiter functions, all programmable by simply connecting a laptop or HM’s optional display unit to set the revs for each function. A bar-mounted button activates the limiter or launch control.
As a bonus, the softwarebased nature of the update means owners who bought the original version, launched in 2019, will be able to get the same functionality via an update when they connect to a laptop. In the future, the firm plan further free software updates for the Pro system to introduce anti-wheelie functions and engine brake control.