#healtech

If you’d told me when I bought my Yamaha R6 – way back in 2003 – that one day I’d want a gear indicator, I’d have said you were crazy. However, years of having them on bikes that I have tested have worn me down, and now I’ve gotten accustomed to taking a quick glance if I’m ever unsure of my gear.

Almost two years ago, I reviewed the Healtech Quick Shifter Easy and finished my review with the following sentence: “The HealTech Quick Shifter Easy lives up to its name, and it will bring a smile to your face as you run through the gears, hearing the exhaust note seamlessly change as you snick through the gears.” Well, in the world of electronics, two years is a long time.

For those of us who own older sportbikes but don’t usually feel the need to keep up in the unending performance wars (after all, many bikes exceeded necessary streetable power years ago), the march of technology still gives us other temptations for updating to more current bikes. These days, it often feels like all of the new bikes come with cool electronic trickery that makes riding easier – and cooler. A quick shifter is an item that drastically increases the fun factor of performance riding. Yeah, they help shave fractions of seconds off lap times, but the real fun for most street riders is the sound of a full-throttle upshift – or three – as they rocket down the entrance ramp or along a remote mountain road.