bike balance

Heres an interesting question for you.

I know you've all had at one time or the other ridden your bike with no hands on the handle bars.

As soon as you let go of the handle bars, in order to maintain a straight ahead direction, sometimes you have to lean a little bit to the right or left in order to balance yourself with the bike in order to go straight ahead.

I've had bikes where you had to lean left and other bikes where you would have to lean right.

What causes this weird behavior.

worn tires,bearings,steering head..... could be lots of things

for me its my left one being bigger.......:laugh: ...road camber ....even a flat road is not flat if you put a four foot level accross it....our inner ear balances us and tells us we are on flat groung most of the time...but everything is based on sea level and slopes .....the bikes have no false balancing systems and read true plumb and level and react.....also as plummen said too, components....there is a place in death valley where you park your car with the e-brake up hill...put it in nuetral and release the e-brake and begin to roll up hill...i shit you not.....been there....good food for thought question though...interesting for folks to chime in on....peace craig

must go to death valley! :laugh:

KZ's have notoriously inaccurate alignment marks on their swingarms. If you're going by the marks when adjusting your chain you've probably gotten your rear wheel out of alignment with the rest of the bike. My KZ900 always required me to shift my weight to the right when I attempted to ride without any hands, at least till I started using a pair of strings to set the rear axle.

KZCSI

Another contributing factor is what I will call human dynamics. Try this, get a good bathroom scale, preferably digital, and stand with one foot on the scale and the other foot on the floor. Try as hard as you can to keep the reading on the scale from going up and down. I cannot keep the scale reading one weight for more than a couple seconds no matter how hard I try, so my weight is shifting left and right no matter what I do (and I haven't had my first drinky-poo today). - Just a theory. Ed

trianglelaguna wrote:

.there is a place in death valley where you park your car with the e-brake up hill...put it in nuetral and release the e-brake and begin to roll up hill...i shit you not.....been there....good food for thought question though...interesting for folks to chime in on....peace craig

There is a place in Florida called Spook Hill that does the same. Put it in neutral and roll up the hill.

Components like PLUMMEN described is what I would suggest

Great ideas. KZCSI, please explain how you use strings, obviously the strings are the same length. Do you measure from the swing arm base to the axle ? :side: This could be tricky, I'll take notes. Thanks

ill let bill explain how his method works but the one i have seen you make a big loop like a rubber band and run it around the tires front to back about four inches from the ground...if the front wheel is poiting straight the the strings will be touching the rear tire in the same way if they are touching on one side and open on the other you simply turn the adjusters out back untill all tire sides and string sides touch the same...you can google motorcycle string alingment for photos....peace

Wow thanks a bunch for that tidbit. I googled motorcycle string alignment and geez I sure know how to align wheels now. Thanks for that....

Today, I actually use a lazer to project a straight line from which I can measure the offset at each tire.

But I did start off with the strings. Start off by making a loop that will encompass both tires. Set up the strings so that they run evenly off of the rear tire and measure how they fit with the front tire. If you've got a center stand you should be able to guess at what amounts to straight ahead if every thing's in line you should find that the measurements are symmetrical.

Hope this helps.

Bill R

KZCSI wrote:

KZ's have notoriously inaccurate alignment marks on their swingarms. If you're going by the marks when adjusting your chain you've probably gotten your rear wheel out of alignment with the rest of the bike. My KZ900 always required me to shift my weight to the right when I attempted to ride without any hands, at least till I started using a pair of strings to set the rear axle.

KZCSI

Oh man, thanks for posting this. I'd never heard that and thought I was going nutso for the past year. :woohoo: