Project Hero Impulse Adventure – Gear Shift Lever

Project Hero Impulse Adventure

The gear shift lever of the Hero Impulse works well for the most part. However, I found that when I wore my huge Alpinestars Toucan riding boots it was difficult to reach under the lever to shift up. Upon closer inspection I found that the lever was about an shorter than the gear shift levers of my other motorcycles. That was causing the problem.

This problem was particularly severe when standing up on the foot pegs. That’s when my foot was horizontal instead of pointing downward, which made it even more difficult to twist my ankle and reach under the lever.

I decided to replace the gear shift lever of the Impulse with that from another motorcycle. While I was figuring out which lever to use, I thought it would be a good idea to pick a lever that had an arm to shift with the heel as well. That way I wouldn’t need to reach under the lever while standing up. Simply raise and twist my heel a little and tap the lever down to shift up..

I started searching for a gear lever that would fit the spline shaft of the Impulse. None of the levers from Hero, Bajaj and Royal Enfield fit. Finally we found a gear shift lever lying in Prajhot Pednekar‘s garage. He cut out the part that clasped the spline and welded it to a new gear shit lever of a Royal Enfield. Prajhot did the smart thing of not wrecking the stock gear shit lever of the Impulse. Instead he stored it in the tool box of the motorcycle. Given the number of times I drop this motorcycle the gear shit lever is going to give way sooner than later. Keeping a spare one in the tool box seemed like a very good idea.

I went for a short test ride and found that the rear pedal of the lever was a little too wide and kept interfering with the heel of my riding boot. So Prajhot decreased its width by about half.

I rode the bike sitting on the seat on tarmac and standing on the pegs off road for a while. I really like the final outcome. Gear shifting is much easier now, sitting down on the seat and specially standing up on the foot pegs.

 

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