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Old September 18th, 2019, 08:10 AM   #14
adouglas
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Name: Gort
Location: A secret lair which, being secret, has an undisclosed location
Join Date: May 2009

Motorcycle(s): Aprilia RS660

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There's often a rush to blame something mechanical for any issue, because *of course* the rider can't be doing anything wrong, yeah?

IMHO the most likely cause of wobble is you. Chances are you're pushing back against the deceleration and putting unnecessary input into the bars. The bike is fighting you.

As well it should, because as we all know bikes are smarter than we are. It's our job to get out of the #@$#()@ way and let them do their thing. This is a really common cause of tank slappers. The bike hits a bump that causes a steering deflection and the instinctive response is to put a death grip on the bars. That only makes things worse. Chillax and the bike will sort itself out.

In this case, the deflection is likely caused by you inadvertently steering the bike because you're gripping harder to counteract deceleration forces.

So to avoid this in the first place, use your legs and core (i.e. belly), lock into the tank and don't put all your weight on your hands.



On a separate note about hard braking:

Something really important to understand about threshold braking... first LOAD the tire, then WORK the tire.

Never ever grab a fistful of brake all at once. That can instantly exceed your traction budget. If you brake progressively -- first squeezing moderately then squeezing HARD -- then the tire squishes into the pavement, the contact patch gets larger, and the available traction goes up.

It can all happen very quickly, but the key is to be progressive, not abrupt.

Relevant footage about this starts at about 4:20

Link to original page on YouTube.

Another advantage of load-then-work is that when you load the tire, the chassis settles down and gets stable before you ask a lot of it.

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