slow speed handling an leveling links

[muaymendez1]

Athough max air i the tires will give best handlingit will also be the roughest ride. Trying to find a happy medium is tough. Lets think of it in terms of a unicycle. If you where cruising along even at 2 miles and hour and you hit brakes on a unicycle it will fall top ove in the direction the wheel is headed.

Put an arm behind it as sme biks in the 20 the same will happen and the front wheel becomes a fulcrum.

Put an arm in front of it( it is now a rear tire) and applying the brake will cause down ward pressure on the front wheel applying more traction.

sport bike racers dont jam on the front brake because the immediate change in traction will cause the fron wheel to lock up. In contrast what they do is lightly apply break and steadily aplly more pressure causeinfg th weight transfer to add more weight and more traction to the front wheel.

This i why applying light rear brake feels like it wants to keep the bike up right. and the front brake makes you wanna get close up with the asphalt.

[CaptainJoe]

Ensure the front and rear tires and shocks are to spec. and you've got good quality tires. Use front break sparingly in low speed turns and rely on the rear brake .

 

These are very good suggestions.

 

Make sure you tell the passenger that the only thing she should be moving (when your going under 5 mph is her head). If she has a bad habit of moving around, tell her to place her hands on your shoulders and just rotate her head into the turn following your lead.

 

Being inseam challenged, I tried the leveling links(homemade) and didn't like them. Believe I gave to Freebird at last MD.

 

The solution to the problem was to raise the forks in the triple clamps 1 inch and rotate the valve stems 90deg. so that they pointed out towards the end of your handlebars. If you don't rotate the forks, you will have to buy a set of taller risers so that you can get to the valve stem.

 

Worked like a charm for me.

Edited October 26, 2011 by CaptainJoe

[muaymendez1]

I have wondered if the forks trick will work on my 96TC. I can loosen the pinch bolts and drop the trees placement on the fork. may have to give that a try

[MikeWa]

There is a lot of weight on the front end which will naturally cause the bike to feel like it wants to fall to the inside during a very slow speed turn. Especially if you apply the front brake. It feels like it just pulls the handlebars in. This used to be very high anxiety for me. My gut reaction was to apply the brake and stop. That just aggravated the whole problem. The cure for me turned out to be practice making slow speed u-turns. Practice practice tighter and tighter u-turns. Now in these parking lot maneuvers I drag the rear brake a little, slip the clutch, and give it plenty of gas. I have discovered the brake will tip you over, the gas will straighten you up. The opposite of what my instincts were. I now have fun riding at low speeds and enjoy parking lot maneuvers.

 

So it wasn't the tires or leveling links or the weight etc. It was me learning how to handle this beast.

Mike

[muaymendez1]

Mike Lets also point out that with practice you get better but failing to continue these manuevers will deteriorate your skill. I was gragginf boards in the summer with any U Turn. I thought I mastered it. and jut the other day walked my bike to make a uturn. I have to go back to the school parking lot and get more practice in

[playboy]

Thanks everyone for there replies. I feel confident i have the tire psi and the air in the shocks where they need to be for me and the wife together. The new tires and this change in air pressure of the suspension has already made a tremendous difference in handling. I'm going to give the leveling links a try and see how I like them I can make them and install them myself so cost will be minimal.

 

Thanks to 1/2crazedbiker your post got me to thinking about my riding technique and may have uncovered a bad habit I didn't realize I had when it comes to braking. I've made it such a habit to use both brakes stopping that I maybe hanging on the front brake a second to long at the stop signs or releasing the back brake to soon. What you said about the front brake pulling which ever way your pointed kinda made the light come on and the foot technique also. Last week when I almost dropped her I'm not sure the front brake wasn't the culprit I was extremely frustrated that morning I will never go back to Gatlinburg or Pigeon Forge on a bike we had been dealing with bumper to bumper traffic for three days I attempted a U turn that didn't go to well I just wanted out of there couldn't take it anymore and wasn't sure my clutch could either.

 

Also thanks to those three Harley riders who struck up a conversation with us at the gas station. They took us under there wing and invited us to ride along with them. Got us out of town and showed us some beautiful scenery and some great roads for riding.

[rickardracing]

Also thanks to those three Harley riders who struck up a conversation with us at the gas station. They took us under there wing and invited us to ride along with them. Got us out of town and showed us some beautiful scenery and some great roads for riding.

 

 

They just wanted a reliable bike with them to pick up the parts!!

[az1103]

Just drop the front end about an inch on the stanchions and the bike will feel like it lost 200 pounds ! No need for different tires or leveling links. It's a relatively easy job and totally solves the "water buffalo" problem.

[footsie]

Hey guys I'm new here but I have put close to 50,000 miles on 2 Ventures in the last 3 years including about 9,000 miles touring with my wife on the back.

 

I have had the same problem a lot of you are describing, and after finding a couple of techniques I finally seem to have gotten a handle on it. Last summer after getting back from Sturgis I picked up the "Ride Like a Pro" dvd and watched it. One thing he emphasizes in that video is how the rear brake acts to stand the bike up during LOW SPEED manuvers (GOOD), and that the front brake will pull you down towards whichever side the fork is turned, even slightly, at speeds below about 5 mph (BAD).

 

So I incorporated that into my riding, and what I do is use both brakes during stopping like you should, but then when I feel I've slowed to about 5 mph, I make a conscious effort to release the front brake, continue to apply pressure with the rear brake, and then SLOWLY put out my left foot as I come to a stop. The more smoothly I put out my left foot it seems, the smoother the stop. If I "stab" my left foot down to the ground it wants to pull the bike to that side, but not severely.

 

I used to put both my feet down when coming to a stop, which of course causes you to use the front brake only, which pulls the bike to whichever side, and makes everything worse.

 

This was a simple change, that even I could remember, and has made a WORLD of difference for me. It has also made riding with my wife on the back a lot more stress free. It has reduced my number of "Ruptured Duck" type landings to zero and made almost all of my stops super smooth.

 

Hope this helps.

 

1/2crazedbikr

 

I thought this was common knowledge

 

Gregg