wobble starting at 85 mph

dynabeads.com good to 125 somth as glass

riding through a wobble is great advice...and often the only option avaiable...it is a needed skill and if someone is not able to do this at will they may be not qualified to continue in motorcycling

Joe,

Balancing the wheel is fine; it may or may not help. But advising someone to test a bike that wobbles at 85 mph by speeding it up another 10 to 15 mph (which would bring it up to 100 mph!) to see if the wobble goes away is irresponsible. The rider could lose control at 100 mph and have a devastating crash! This seems to me like an extremely hazardous way to try to determine whether or not a tire needs to be balanced (and even then it wouldn’t tell you which tire). Why not simply check the balance of the tire instead of running the risk that the wobble will grow worse at 100 mph and put the rider on the asphalt? You state that if the wobble doesn’t disappear it usually isn’t a balance issue. But even if true, that has only eliminated 1 of many possible causes such as bad wheel bearings, loose axle nuts/clamps, bad swingarm bushings/bearings, bad shocks, bad steering stem bearings, improper tire mounting/pressure/defective tire, etc. etc. It may be just me, but I would much rather test each component in my garage to see which, if any, are out of spec rather than go wobbling down the highway at 100 mph wondering which component is trying to kill me. Maybe it’s different in my neck of the woods, but I would be hard pressed to find a “trained and qualified” motorcycle mechanic in my area that would take a bike from a customer who said it wobbled at 85 mph and run it up to 100 mph to see if a tire needed to be balanced. Ed

I have to agree Ed, I wouldn't ride through it at that speed either if I was asked to sort the problem out, in fact you would be hard pushed to get any mechanic to diagnose the problem when it doesn't start until 85mph. To sucessfully diagnose anything you really have to experience the problem and no shop will let a mechanic test ride at 85mph, however I may well ride through it if it felt safe enough to do so on my own bike, that's the difference, it's all personal choice.

Another possible cause of drifting is a bent fork or a bent triple tree, which if found would indicate a possible steering bearing damage, food for thought. Please, don't look for damaged goods at 85!!

Please if it wobbles at 85+ then slow it down, get it back home and start checking it out. Getting off at 85+ if your a racer in full protection with hopefully a air fence and Ambulance near, is one thing. But a street rider is probably going to Die, or will be a Potato the rest of their life.
Riding through a high speed wobble, to me it means staying cool, keeping control, and slowing down to stop the wobble, Car/ Bike, whatever.

i thought potato has an e

trianglelaguna wrote:

riding through a wobble is great advice...and often the only option avaiable...it is a needed skill and if someone is not able to do this at will they may be not qualified to continue in motorcycling

I agree every rider should be taught to remain calm and focus to regain control of a bike that has entered a high speed wobble, before it becomes a tank slapping disastrous outcome like I have witness (well through the smoke that is). Some say power through it, others say slowly back off and let the front tire take some weight back on it. Backing off worked for me, and throttling has worked for friends of mine.

However, I don't recommend throttling up through an 85 mph wobble as a testing method for discovering what's causing the wobble like Joe did... call me strange I dunno. I'm with 650Ed on it being in the worst advice column. :blink:

Hi guys,
Thanks for the advice. I mentioned earlier that a buddy of mine mounted the tires and didn't balance them, so I am guessing this will be my first inspection. I did not know a unbalanced wheel would cause wobbles... I thought it would just vibrate. I am pretty sure my rear axle is aligned properly...I'm OCD about that. I also have no verified the fork pressure or swingarm/steering bearings. Hopefully I can knock these out this weekend.

As for powering through the wobble, if it was at a slower speed, but at 85 (my speedo has a little peg that stops it there anyway) I'm not gonna power through it. Really, the bike is 30 yrs old and I've only owned it for just more than a year and just got it road worthy 3 months ago, so my trust isn't where it needs to be to go that fast yet

Did anybody mention the possibility of a frame crack? We are talking about 30yr old welds here.

jeez, I sure hope not....

For sure. Cracks are not common, but with a 30yr old bike there's no telling what it has been subjected to unless you are the only owner. Personally, I'd put my money on worn bearings, worn shocks, or both. Checking those things is pretty easy, the most time consuming will be the swingarm bearings, but if you have the wheels off for balancing anyway, it won't be a chore at all.