Kawasaki Sportsbike Riders Club - Australia - Online Forum

Hey Glen, just my opinion but i don't ride as loose as a goose or let the bike sort its shit out itself at all. I keep those fugin bars straight..with some strong arm tactics..
The 10 used to give little shakes all day long but being a light bike you could sort it out... take a ZX7 slap and thats a different story due to the geometry of the bike and weight over the front wheel..it snaps wrists..
Again its just my opinion here but if it was loose as a goose why would we use steering dampers..?
Again not ruffling feathers but Ms Mohawk saw some funky shit on the weekend invloving a 10, a tankslap and a tree and i'd be careful about the advice you supply short of being an physicist...

Just to throw a spanner in the works, for some reason my Tankslapping experiences (and there has been a few ) are different.

First of all for me a tankslapper is exaclty that - It starts off as headshake, but then the bars hit the stops and the whole show just starts shaking so hard you cannot see where you are going and get ready for a crash. I get headshake all the time, I think as a consequence of not enough weight over the front wheel under hard acceleration (I weigh less than 60 kilos) and perhaps riding style.

Everytime I have had one it has been when the throttle is already pinned. Keeping it pinned seems to make it worse, so I acutally do roll off the throttle gently. This allows the front wheel to actually make more than a little contact with the road and start going straight again. It seems they start because the wheel sort of skips across the road, and if it keeps skipping it just gets worse so I need to get the thing back on the road, or off it all together, but I am a chicken when it comes to wheelies so option 1 is the one I take.

The super-fun one I had on BarraBob's Barra was the most full on. It actually felt like the front tyre was off the ground between twists, and only hit the deck when on full lock one way and then the other. I think I did a little damage to the steering stops on the poor thing....

The steering damper is such a help I cannot tell you how much owning a bike with a good one is done for me. On the R1 I just keep it pinned and the headshake settles down all by itself within a few shakes. Every time I come on to the front straight at QR it shakes, then settles. If it doesn't shake I am not going fast enough.

Please realize that the above is just my (limited) experience, and is not in any way meant to be taken as advice, but just gives a different view of what can (and does) happen.

ohno102go wrote:Hey Glen, just my opinion but i don't ride as loose as a goose or let the bike sort its shit out itself at all. I keep those fugin bars straight..with some strong arm tactics..
The 10 used to give little shakes all day long but being a light bike you could sort it out... take a ZX7 slap and thats a different story due to the geometry of the bike and weight over the front wheel..it snaps wrists..
Again its just my opinion here but if it was loose as a goose why would we use steering dampers..?
Again not ruffling feathers but Ms Mohawk saw some funky shit on the weekend invloving a 10, a tankslap and a tree and i'd be careful about the advice you supply short of being an physicist...

I suppose it's one of the beatiful things about bikes, it's not always predicatable and every circumstance is going to be somewhat different. I can guarantee you though, fighting them doesn't work and loose is the best way to go. Holding on too tight and tensing up is one of the worst habits you can fall into and unfortunately one of the hardest to get people out of. Any decent riding course will cover this in about the first hour.

ZX10's don't really tankslap that badly, they are simply cantankerous buggers at times that will flap around a bit. If you stay loose on them they sort themselves out.

Hmmm was explained somewhere about the wheels on a shopping trolly (ever get a wobbly one) anyway that is to do with rake and trail the ones i have had are midturn in a corner at 150ish and you are hanging on by one knee and a arm draped over the tank with only enough grip on the bars to keep the bike pointing where you want to go.

I roll off before it gets bad and have made adjustments to the bike so i will see how it goes.

I have actually had a bit of it in first and second gear up the hills where the front gets light on the power midcorner and it feels like the front wheel is off the deck and it gets a wobble up.

Plenty of guys say power on some say its too much or too little weight over the front wheel and in drims case on my barra i would say it was sprung way to hard for him, I weigh 105kg with gear and he weighs less than 60 and i have aftermarket front end to suit me.

I read somewhere that its better to fix the root cause than appy a band aid soloution(steering damper) but i have one anyway and they have other advantages as well.

Could look at weight balance front rear and spring setup I just did this and changed all my spring settings to suit a fast track but it will be shite on a road ride but its easy to get the rear spring out in a hurry.


Hmmmm track test its been a few months since i have been on a bike.