Heel/Toe? Hell, No!

OK, so for the past seven years I drove a Ural Sidecar motorcycle with pegs and heel/toe shifter.  It all made sense.  Heel upshift, toe downshift.  Even had a technique where I would rest the boot tip on the peg to raise the heel for a clean and steady upshift.  Body position was upright and there was a clean vertical line from body through the hip, to the ankle and foot for the shift.

Then, everything changed.  I traded the Ural for a cruiser styled two wheel bike.  Again with heel/toe shifter but this time with floor boards.  All controls are "forward" of the center line.  I struggled with the heel shifter for the upshift.  Finally, I just gave it up and used the toe portion for every shift, up and down, like most cycles on the road.

The heel upshift required removing the entire foot from the floor board to "stomp" on the heel lever. This is most unnatural.  Using just the toe worked fine so the heel lever seemed unnecessary.

In addition, the left foot was constrained in rear placement by the heel lever.  Done and done.

I cut off the heel lever leaving just the toe.

Time for Amputation! Cut it off!

I finished cutting the fenders.  The actual part of the "bobber" project where you bob the fenders.  

I started with the front. I first made a test cut to figure out the best approach, cutting a waste section off. Then I moved to the actual cut on the fender.  Both the front and back of the fender.  I left the back longer to help with rain displacement.

I was running without any front fender, but wanted to see what a sufficiently cut fender might look like. Jury is still out.  What do you think?

The real cut required was on the rear.  Some pix will explain it better.

I taped up the fender on the paint side to cut through.  And used a rubber band to layout the cut line. I then marked carefully along the line with marker and cut it.

After the amputation! (Yes, I readjusted the cut line quite a few times AFTER the pix above.)

I removed the tape and then filed the rough edge to eliminate any sharp edges.

Next I covered everything to paint just the cut edge.

The final product.

Complete view.

Next big steps are painting and powder coating selected chrome bits.  I need to figure out the total cost by getting estimates.  I only want to tear it down once.  But for now, it's rideable.