Motorcycle transmissions work differently - their gears are in constant mesh but they get locked to their shafts by forks shifting dogs (+ shaped pieces sliding on the splined shafts) that engauge into pins on the gears. They can chip too but there is enough slop that if you get the dog engauged fast enough you get full contact.

I've only not used the clutch when I had cars that didn't have a functioning clutch. Either the clutch cable or throwout arm had broken and in one case where a sedentary Subaru's clutch had rusted shut (drove around for a few miles with the clutch pedal pressed down until the clutch plates popped apart). I dislike the clutch/starter lockout circuit found on modern cars that prevents you from starting the ICE with the clutch released, so you can't start it in gear.

Way back when I worked in the truck shop one of the regular owner drivers had only one leg. His truck had a 4 speed auxilary transmission with a low low. I am pretty sure he never used the clutch very much ;) . It was such a low gear you could actully easily start the engine with the truck in gear. I never really learned all the details of how he managed but he seemed to do quite well. A big old Cummins could pull very well at idle rpm so he may have used the clutch to start out sometimes too. You could actually bump some of those into gear with the engine idling and the truck stopped.

The shift splits are set up pretty even so you will have almost the same rpm drop every shift. The show offs would use the engine compression brake to drop the rpm quicker. That had the potential for some rough shifts.

Even 30 years ago many of the shifts were air assisted. That made for quick shifts with little grinding. A few shifts had synchros, most did not.

It is fun to play around but I use the clutch.

LOL its not modern at all... my 27 year old chevette has it. its easy to fix tho. the switch in my truck broke so i just pulled the plug, cut the 2 wires from the plug and crimped them together. now it starts in gear in neutral whenever...:D

LOL its ok. isnt it about past your bedtime? hehe JK

its past mine fo sho

One other deep thinking consideration. If you do clutchless shifting, or you try to shift the transmission at close to the same conditions you would if you were using clutchless shifting, then you the synchros in the transmission have a lot less work and wear on them.

I think that clutchless shifting would be really rough on the synchros. I mean, even if you do a pretty good job rev-matching, you still will cause more wear than if you had pressed the clutch...

Now I'm not following you. The synchro's only engage when you are shifting gears. If the gears are already running at the right speed to do clutchless shifting, then the gears should already be at the same speed, so that their isn't any wear.

I'm not suggesting someone do clutchless shifting, I am just trying to follow how it would create more wear.

Ok, I think that makes sense. Thanks for the explanation.