A while ago there was a trend for cutting edge motorbikes to be fitted with some sort of gear indicator. Not a particularly well developed trend, admittedly, but for a brief time it became at least common enough not to be a talking point any more if you was, say, a GSX-400 and wondered what the numbers were above the clocks. Anyway, for one reason or another (and I confess I have no idea what the reason is) the trend died out as quickly as it started. Which is, in many ways, a shame. Because when you come to think of it, something to tell you what gear you are in could really be quite handy.

When you’re in the car you can just glance down or even feel where the gearstick is to find out what gear you’re in. But you can’t do that on a bike. You’re blatting along a nice open road, the bike’s pulling well, you go to change up and…you’re already in top and you feel a fool. It sounds nasty outside, it probably doesn’t do your transmission any good and it knocks you off your rhythm. So you either have to rely on your maths to know that at 80mph and just over 6000 rpm you’re in, um, you know, I don’t know which gear you’re in. See what I mean?

This is where the Acumen Digital Gear Indicator comes in. Like several other products on the market, it does exactly what it says on the box. It’s digital, it indicates which gear you are in, and yes, it’s made by Acumen.

This neat little gadget attaches to the side of your clocks using the ferociously strong velcro supplied or with glue if you don’t ever want it to shift. You hard wire it into your loom so that it takes a feed from your speedo and tacho so that it can do the maths for you and power a lovely clear blue display with the magic number on it.

Fitting the device is not a complete doddle but it isn’t hard provided you can read instructions and are not afraid of delving into the spaghetti behind your clocks. You also need to be able to solder. The indicator does rely on your bike having an electronic speedo as well as the more usual electronic tacho. If your speedo is cable driven you’ll need an extra wee gizmo to bolt on the bottom. No problem, just something you should know.

Read the instructions a couple of times before starting work. Take your time because if you end up cutting into the wrong wire it may be difficult to fix. There is a useful wiring guide which goes some way toward at least identifying the right coloured cables to go for on your bike, and the company website also has updated listings.

Fitting the gear indicator to my GSX-R 750 took just under an hour from start to finish, and had no unpleasant surprises. It’s well made and the cables took the solder very nicely. Mounting it was not a problem, although I would strongly recommend that you make sure you know where you’re going to put it, ad that it will actually go there safely, before you get stuck in. Just in case.

Having got everything connected and reassembled, you need to teach it your gears. No problem – the instructions are very clear indeed and the procedure is almost foolproof. But you need a paddock stand or a very quiet piece of road to do it properly, because you need to run the bike up to about 4000rpm through the gears. As that equates to about 65mph in top I’m quite glad I have a paddock stand…

In use, the Digital Gear Indicator is great. As I said earlier on, it does exactly what you might expect. The display is very clear, even in bright sunlight (and on the day that these pictures were taken it was very bright indeed) but manages not to be too intrusive at night, being fitted with a photo-cell that automatically dims the display when it gets dark. It never got the gear wrong, and I can see that many people would benefit a great deal from having this fitted.

Now what I would really like to see is a portable one that senses pulses like some dataloggers rather than having to be soldered in. That would be a real boon for someone like me who may be on three or four different bikes in any one day, although I suspect the market might be limited…

STOP PRESS -

Acumen have just announced that the Digital Gear Indicator is now available in red, green and yellow as well as blue. Red is recommended as the clearest in bright sunlight while the others may better suit your colour scheme...