Age of the semi-auto starts

QJMotor follows Yamaha’s Y-AMT range

Few companies launch new models as rapidly as China’s QJMotor and the brand is reacting fast to changes in customer preferences in its homeland that have seen a surprisingly strong swing towards semi-automatic transmissions. Only last year it launched the SRK500RA – a semi-auto sports bike with a 35kW 449cc parallel twin and paddle-shift transmission – and now its filed designs showing a reworked version of that machine along with a smaller SRK300 naked model using a similar automated gearbox.

The changes to the SRK500RA are more than just cosmetics. There’s a new trellis style frame underneath styling that mimics the brand’s latest higher-end sport bikes, a template set out by the MV-powered Ten78 superbike concept unveiled a couple of years ago. That concept, like many of the brand’s recent bikes, was sculpted by Italy’s C-Creative studio, founded by ex-MV Agusta boss Giovanni Castiglioni and former MV and Benelli design director Adrian Morton, and the new SRK500RA shares the same nose and headlight design along with an overall shape that’s less fussy than the brand’s previous sports models. A pair of unusual front winglets are added, with perforated endplates that presumably serve an aerodynamic purpose.

There’s still a single-sided swingarm, but with a more attractive wheel design, and the front brake is swapped to a radial caliper with a shrouded disc.

There’s a change to the semi-auto transmission setup, too. The finger-and-thumb paddle shifter on the left bar remains, and there’s still no foot control to change ratios, but the updated designs clearly show a right-foot brake pedal, something that’s missing on the current SRK500RA, which uses a scooter-style braking setup with the rear brake on the left bar where the clutch would normally be found. There new designs show there’s still a lever on the left bar, suggesting the updated bike gives the rider the option of a hand or foot-operated rear brake.

Like several other modern semi-auto bikes, notably Yamaha’s fast-growing range of Y-AMT machines, the QJMotor uses electromechanical actuators to operate an otherwise conventional clutch and shifter, all controlled via that shift paddle and a transmission ECU.

The second newcomer appears to be a replacement for the single-cylinder SRK300 naked bike, with a similar tubular steel swingarm and the same wheels as the existing model, but a new trellis frame and, like the larger twin, radial-mount brakes instead of an axial caliper at the front. Again, its styling is derived from C-Creative’s designs for QJMotor, notably the four-cylinder 921cc SRK921 naked bike that only recently joined the range along with a visually-identical but more powerful SRK1051 using a 1051cc, 106kW engine, that’s recently been added to the brand’s global lineup.

The SRK300’s engine looks the same as the current model’s 21kW single, with the exception that it’s gained a visible clutch actuator on the righthand side and a shift actuator on the left, while losing both its gear shift pedal and the rear brake pedal. In their place, it’s gained the same shift paddle under the lefthand bar, allowing finger-and-thumb gearchanges.

Neither updated model has been officially added to the range yet, but their appearances in these design registrations indicate we can expect to see them appear in QJMotor’s lineup in the coming months.

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