About Us
Roy Tansley, Managing Director of Pro-Shift developed his original Gearshifting System for his own personal use after losing his lower left leg in a motorbike accident 24 years ago. As a young man he had just started a promising career racing solo bikes in 1986 but had his licence taken away due to the injury he had sustained in his accident. Not one to give up without a fight, Roy lobbied the ACU relentlessly to have his licence returned. They finally agreed in 1993 and allowed him to return to racing with the stipulation that he switched from solos to Side-Cars. Roy was back! Mid season 1993 saw him start to race again with his prototype Gearshifter which enabled him to change gear without the need of his foot. The Gearshifter proved to be a great success and contributed to Roy and his Side-Car passenger achieving 3rd place in the 1994 British Championship. It also helped him to become the fastest disabled racer ever at the Isle of Man TT with an average speed over 3 laps of 100.31 mph.
Several years and many developments and improvements to the System later, Pro-Shift Technologies Limited came into being at the beginning of 2005, specialising in designing, developing and manufacturing semi-automatic Paddle-Shift Gearshifting Systems for sequentially geared vehicles world-wide. The Business has continued to go from strength to strength over the years and Roy launched his latest and most sophisticated System to date, the PS3 at this year's (2010) Autosport Show. Over 3 years in the design and development stages, it received an extremely enthusiastic reception from Show visitors and media alike and looks set to become a hit in the Motorsport world.
2009 saw Pro-Shift move out of the Derby city centre premises to its new home a few miles away in Spondon. The current team comprises Roy as Managing Director along with Lynda Gamble as General Manager. The latest additions to the Pro-Shift crew are Ian Dorrington in May 2010 as Chief Development Engineer and newly appointed Administrator Claire Smith and Mechanical Engineer Chris Judge in 2011. The team are further supported by many freelance engineers, Quint, Liam and Sid to name just a few of the highly skilled backup crew we rely on.
