steering damper

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero

Push more, it'll slap very hard...

Matt

yep very hard

Braking,steering,suspension set-up and riding style are the reasons tank-slappers happen so unless you are treating the roads like a racetrack I think you would be safer to have the previously mentioned checked out first before investing your money in what maybe an unnecessary piece of equipment.If a fault exists you will still have it after fitting a damper. Only trying to save you money mate

[northwind]

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero

It can happen, and today I understand why. The sv is softly sprung (we all know that) and it ties itself in knots if pushed a little hard. Front end likes to flap about a little. Push more, it'll slap very hard...

Did you have your box on, and any weight in it, I wonder? My SV's about as sorted as road bikes get, but with weight behind the rear wheel it's still easy to unweight the front, and that can cause instability. With a less good suspension setup it'd also help to overwhelm the rear- you'll use more travel just to carry the weight of the bike, squat more on power, and you're more likely to kick off bumps.

Most SV slappers come from the rear- it gets overwhelmed and stops responding effectively to the road surface. That has a knock-on effect on the front- when the rear starts kicking and squashing, the front starts weighting and unweighting.

Sprint make a decent damper too with SV fitting kit. I just got one cheap, thought might as well have one. Thinking along the lines of best to have one and not need it than not have one and find yourself in the preverbial.

Originally Posted by northwind

Did you have your box on, and any weight in it, I wonder? My SV's about as sorted as road bikes get, but with weight behind the rear wheel it's still easy to unweight the front, and that can cause instability. With a less good suspension setup it'd also help to overwhelm the rear- you'll use more travel just to carry the weight of the bike, squat more on power, and you're more likely to kick off bumps.

Most SV slappers come from the rear- it gets overwhelmed and stops responding effectively to the road surface. That has a knock-on effect on the front- when the rear starts kicking and squashing, the front starts weighting and unweighting.

Won't application of throttle cause the rear suspension to extend rather than cause squatting?

[northwind]

Good point, you've caught me being sloppy you're right, engine power causes the bike to stand up, as you can feel if you feed the clutch in with the brakes on. But on hard acceleration in lower gears you also get a squatting effect from the weight redistribution- at full power you can have the whole weight sat on the rear wheel. It doesn't actually matter which is more pronounced though, because they both have the same effect, of giving the rear shock a lot more work to do.

Might be being thick here, but how does weight effect "slapability"? I'm only 9 stone myself and 5'5" and have really tried poking the SV into one but the closest I can get is a slight twitch. I've had enough on other bikes to know that they **** me up, so I can see your want, I'm just not sure it's likely to ever happen again and so you end up with the negatives of a steering damper without ever really making use of the positives (obviously decent dampers have few negatives but they're going to have some).

If anything I'd have thought light weight would be a benefit as spring rate at least is about right for us lightweights. Damping's still a bit iffy mind.

i have owned alot of different bikes and touch would i have never come close to a serious slapper! just the odd wag of the bars which is never a problem! i think alot of people tense up when this happens which can then transfere it to the rest of the bike, its best to just stay relaxed and i be smooth in whatever you do i,e accelarate or deceletate. the smoother and more relaxed you ride the less it upsets the bike

i downloaded a few bits n bobs on SV suspension set up etc last night

my settings are on standard on the front-3

the rear im not sure i think its higher tha what it should be-4

i dont treat the road like a race track, all i did was overtake 1 car, i beleive i hit a bump and that caused it, not had any probs before when accelerating hard.

like i said all i know is it scared the ****e outta me n i dont want it happening again!

funnily enough it happened so fast, i dont know how it stopped but it did!

my mate at work is really good with bikes and cars hes gonna help me set it up.

understanding why it happened is all good, but i just want to eliminte it happening again as much as possible.

SV: The thinking man's TL?



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