Fjr1300ae

Yamaha’s YCC-S (Yamaha Chip Controlled Shift) is a wonderful piece of engineering even a six year old could learn to operate. There is no clutch lever on the left handle, the rider only has to twist it, and the shifting is taken care of by a push button mechanism located on the inside of the grip.

The upshift button is where one would expect the high-beam flasher to be, the downshift button is right under the horn – I honked that a few times instead of shifting down – which is kind of weird, but riders have ways of overcoming such awkward moments ( by positioning and keeping fingers over the two buttons, which are actually the two ends of the same lever sticking out of the control housing.). As I said before, it did give me a few awkward moments till I got used to it, but I honestly believe it’s a step forward from traditional foot-shifters.

I was told – though nobody ever took the bike apart for me to see – that both the shifting and the clutch were handled by a state-of-the-art computer system that operated them in a close correlation, thus making possible the virtually unnoticeable gear transitions I experienced. The electronics also controls the clutch according to throttle and the type of terrain the bike is riding on (steep climb or downhill sweepers)
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