Sunline V-1 MDX Levers 6

The Sunline V-1 MDX lever, shown here with an RC3 Clutch Assembly.

Way back…well, a loooong time ago, when I was first discovering motocross, I spent part of a summer with my aunt and uncle on their farm in Oregon. My uncle had an old silver-tanked Yamaha 360 that I liked sitting on in their dusty barn, imagining what it’d be like to actually ride it. The only problem was, I wasn’t nearly tall enough to even straddle the beast. Of course, that also didn’t prevent me from trying, and I can still remember the feeling of losing my balance, tipping over, hitting the ground, and seeing the clutch lever being reformed into a beautiful fishhook shape. I even remember discovering that the buttery soft lever suddenly wasn’t so easy to bend back into something resembling a stock lever.

Modern levers aren’t quite that soft, and since they've had a lot of weight trimmed from them, they more often seem to snap, rather than bend. That leaves you with a big opportunity for a severely hampered ride, or a DNF.

Since those prehistoric days, there have been a variety of fixes to prevent broken levers, including pivots that allow the levers to fold forward; and Teflon sleeves that slide on the bars, which allow the perch to rotate, sparing your levers.

The original inventor of the design on the V-1 lever, Vince Warren, headed out for practice in the L.A. Coliseum.

But while most riders probably think that folding levers started with the current crop of ARC and ASV levers, actually, a racer/inventor named Vince Warren had been working on a folding lever design of his own back in the early ‘80s. It not only folded forward, but also used a separate hinge to move 90 degrees up or down. He’d finished a working prototype in the latter half of that decade, but unfortunately, he lost a battle with cancer and never got to see his dream realized. However, his mom worked to complete a design patent, which Sunline’s Eddie Cole later discovered. After contacting Vince’s mom, working out an agreement to use the design, and bringing it up to modern standards of construction, the Sunline V-1 MDX lever was born. The MDX? That stands for Multi-Directional.

Vince in his workshop.

Here's the original prototype that Vince had been working on. Compare it to the modern version above. Check out the perch, and you'll get a sense of the history behind Sunline. Vince was using an old Sunline perch for his prototype.

The V-1 MDX has all the modern features you’d expect. It's a smooth-working spring loaded folding lever that you can bolt into your stock perch, or on the clutch side, use with Sunline's RC3 clutch assembly. The levers are light, adjustable, and have the functional design and performance you'd expect. They also have reach adjustment on each side, so you can dial the levers for small hands. And the RC3 clutch assembly? Well, the CNC-machined perch has a smooth-working adjuster, and a set of Teflon sliders in the perch clamp, just in case. Four-stroke guys will note that it comes equipped with an optional hot start lever that’s easy to install.

Here it is, the heart of the MDX design...pivots that allow the lever to fold forward, or to rotate in 90 degrees up or down. It's easy to smack them back into place after a crash.

A minor thing to watch out for is depending on where you mount your lever, if you run a grip that has a hard flange, you may want to trim it back so that it doesn’t interfere with the lever operation.

Also, we’re still trying to figure out why there are detents when the lever is pointed straight up, or straight down. The only detent you need is the one that aligns it with the bars, and you should be able to quickly and easily knock it back to straight.

The RC3 Clutch assembly with the V-1 MDX lever goes for $199.99.

The V-1 MDX lever is now winning Supercross races, and they’ve already got some ideas in mind for a V-2. They come in your choice of black, silver, red, blue, or bronze. Also, while they’re not particularly cheap at $79.95, for your choice of a clutch or brake lever, they do come equipped with a five-year warranty.

For more information? Check out www.sunlineracing.com

– GuyB