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Cons:
Catch a lot of grief from other riders (not a real bike, etc)

:rofl:

I guess that one never really occurred to me. After all, it's not like you are riding a scooter :-P
 
I am a modern man, I have no use for those antique shift levers LOL , now if I can get rid of the one on my goldwing without spending $25k :)

DCT is too much freaking fun, twist and rip! It is twice as much fun on dirt roads.

I will admit it did take me 1000 miles on the NC700 to fall in love with the DCT. The first 500 miles I hated the DCT and was ready to burn the bike to the ground.

It is always interesting to hear people that "test" rode a DCT, some love it some hate it. I bet after 1000 miles, some that love it might hate it and some that hate might love it.

The art of manliness involves clutch levers.....
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I rode 2015 NC700X DCT for about 15 months and put 20,000 miles on it. I rode it to Colorado twice and did lots of off-road riding.

I think Jarrett did a great job summarizing it. I'd like to add two things.
1. The sport mode was useless for me. It didn't change the shifting characteristics enough to call it a sport mode. When I needed it to be spirited, I used the manual mode.

2. I couldn't pop the clutch to go over obstacles.

I really enjoyed not shifting while I was on the pegs, though.

Jim
 
I mostly agree with your list but I disagree about parking lot maneuvers. My buddy dropped his Goldwing DCT when he was almost stopped but then changed direction and decided to turn quickly. The bike apparently assumed he was stopping and had cut power as if going to neutral or pulling in the clutch. He expected normal engine speed movement forward as if the bike was in gear and idling but the bike had cut power. As a result, he was mid turn with no power and dropped the bike. Had he realized it was going to do this, he could have given it gas, but a DCT bike won't idle forward at engine speed with no throttle, or at least his didn't in this case.

I've ridden with him on his prior Goldwings over 50K miles and never seen him drop it in a parking lot so DCT definitely caused this one.

Don't get me wrong, he absolutely loves his DCT, but it takes some getting used to.

As far as performance, he always moves it into manual when doing any performance riding. Sport is better but it still doesn't give him near the engine braking and power out of the corners that he wants. He says it seems to be typically a gear higher than he likes to be in sport and 2 gears higher in tour.

On the positive side....every time we get stuck in traffic, he's laughing at us as we have to feather the clutch and slow roll the bike as he just puts it in auto and rolls on.

For him it's perfect... put in manual when you want performance and put in auto when you are just cruising down the road. He now knows that it will go to neutral when you cut throttle at slow speeds so he makes sure to keep a bit of throttle if he needs to do tight maneuvers at very slow speeds instead of just expecting engine idling to carry him.

As for the "not a real motorcycle" sentiment of some. For me, I definitely consider them real motorcycles but you definitely give up some control and the ability to use the clutch as a secondary acceleration or deceleration device to vary power and engine braking delivery. For a normal rider in normal situations, it doesn't matter 95% of the time, but it would matter a lot in a competitive situation. As such, I really don't think you'll see a DCT motorcycle in a racing situation as a rider with a clutch that truly knows how to use it can definitely out perform a DCT bike.

I'll probably own one at some point in my life, just not today.
 
I wasn't crazy about automatic mode on my Africa Twin.
Best mod to date has been the Honda DCT foot-shifter.
I don't even use automatic-mode anymore.
Now it feels like a regular manual, just without the clutch.

Can still use the paddle shifters when riding off road and keep feet planted on pegs if needed.
 
Was this early on in the ownership of your buddy's DCT GW, by chance? It takes a bit to get used to using the DCT tech.

Maybe the GW's are different, but mine don't go into neutral unless you use the switch to put them in neutral. If they are in D or S, they move if you touch the throttle. And they do putt along at 5 mph or so unless you stop them.

Once you have stopped the DCT bikes, you have to give them gas again if you want them to move forward, but its there immediately. If you touch the throttle at all, it moves forward instantly. At least the NC700X, Africa Twin and VFR1200X do, not sure about the Gold Wing.

I was literally in a parking lot yesterday afternoon with my VFR doing low speed maneuvers with it. Figure 8's and the Iron Cross at 3-5mph, just gently blipping the throttle to move around. It behaves just like my other two do, just more weight to factor in.
He had about 3K miles on it when this happened. Definitely not as many miles as he's had with a clutch, but more than enough to be used to it.

Even so, it was definitely because he was expecting it to do something other than it did and he hadn'tbeen in that situation before. He could certainly execute that maneuver now that he's used to it.

Side note....lots of discussion on the Wing forum about initialization / reset processes on the DCT. Apparently it can learn and if it's shifting rough or quirky, you re-initialize it and it makes it better. Rodney did his and said it really cleaned up the shifting on his. Maybe that's just a Wing thing though..
 
nevermind ... in life, there are certain things one regrets.

This is one of them.
 
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Can I play too?

With the Yamaha YCCS I know it also takes getting used to. I nearly dropped my bike pulling out of the parking lot. Turns out, pulling out in a turn you subconsciously start tipping in the bike as you let out the clutch. I wasn't used to it yet and the clutch hadn't engaged when I tipped it in, then it engaged and off I went, but it was a nervous little moment. One trick for slow speed maneuvers in parking lots is to use a little rear brake while giving a little gas to control it.

One day I'll wear out my FJR and I'll likely be looking for a DCT bike to replace it. I hope Honda has so much success in the mean time that Yamaha has to jump on the band wagon.

As for racing, I'm not sure the riders are actually faster than DCT. Due to the way it works of already having the next gear engaged, there's no way a standard transmission could be faster. Problem is, making them stout enough for racing and keeping them from being super expensive. Drag racers use quick shifters and DCT is faster than that due to design.
 
So if I bump the throttle enough to make the DCT engage 1st gear and move forward then let off the throttle completely will the bike continue to move at idle, or does forward movement stop?
 
So if I bump the throttle enough to make the DCT engage 1st gear and move forward then let off the throttle completely will the bike continue to move at idle, or does forward movement stop?


It will coast to a stop if you close the throttle.
I usually just feather it when I get into slow traffic.
You have to rev the motor a few hundred rpm over idle before the clutches engage
 
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Got it. Thanks
 
I don't know the exact mechanics of it, so I'm going to just use 5 mph as a reference point.

If you are stopped and you put it in D or S mode and give it some throttle so the bike accelerates up to 7-8 mph, then completely release the throttle, the bike will slow down to 5 mph and keep rolling at that speed until you stop it by touching one of the brakes.

If you slow it down from 5 mph to 3 mph, then let off the brake, the bike will coast to a stop.

If you are stopped and you put it in D or S mode and give it some throttle so the bike accelerates up to 4 mph, then completely release the throttle, the bike will slow down until it comes back to a stop.

These numbers are an estimate. Not sure if its based on RPM or speed, but that is essentially how it works on my three DCT bikes. Kinda hard to explain, hope that makes sense.

Good to know.
Wasn't aware of that since I usually keep it in manual shift mode.
 
...
Never misses a shift or grinds gears or skids rear tire on downshift...

Manual trans African Queen has a slipper clutch so no downshift skids either. And for shift misses or grinds that would be a never also for proper manual operation.

Sent from my SM-G860P using Tapatalk
 
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