headshake

[JR650]

i am not sure why, but whenever i hit about 80 miles an hour my bike has developed a headshake, didnt notice it until the other night when we were racing on a gravel road. Any idea what may have caused this to start suddenly? I have been playing with the suspention clickers lately trying to find something that works, could this be the cause? someone please help quickly, thanks in advance, JR

[Redtractor]

The pig handels best with a steering damper esp. on gravel roads at high speeds try looking at www.rttmotorsports.com

or gpr or wer or scotts all are good just find what you like best and what fits your pocketbook. they make a world of diffrence ?

[Dutch]

Check you steering neck bearings, set your clickers back to stock. Tire choice can cause head shake also. My bet is head bearings. Don't install a $500 damper as a bandaid for other problems.

[RWilson]

Mine too. It comes and goes. I was wondering about front wheel balance. I can't do the 500 bucks for a stabilizer just yet, especially since I ripped off my RH case this evening.

If front tires can contribute to headshake what are the suggestions?

[needsprayer]

Have you checked the easy items first, like spoke tension, tire pressure and torn up knobs?

[RWilson]

Yes I did, the wheel is very true and tire is good. But, I have been running a slightly tweaked front rotor do you think a little rotor rub at speed could do it? It is weird because is not always there. One thing more... when I go fast I tend to hunker down and weigh the rear instead of the front tire. I bet that is the problem.

[needsprayer]

Whenever I am accelerating past 70 mph, I put my chest down on the handlebars and weight the front end.

I do think that you should check out your front brake pads and see if they have a high spot. You could replace them and check the amount of rub that you have.

One question, does your headshake occur more often when your throttle is steady at a high speed, when you are accelerating past a certain speed or when you are decelerating from a high speed?

Decelerating can be as simple as not acelerating without any use of the brake or actually engaging the brakes.

[RWilson]

Headshake occurs (intermittently) when accelerating past 70 mph. Once there, it continues when deccelerating until a sufficiently slower speed is reached, usually a substantially slower speed than it began at. I am pretty sure most of my problem is weight transfer to the rear. The best tip I ever recieved for this bike was to "ride the front wheel", so I just need to do it. Thanks

[JR650]

i fixed it, i think, i had a couple really bad spokes(oops), fixed that and decreased the rebound damping and all seems good now. Thanks for the help, JR

BTW, it usually seemed to be at constant speed.