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"Heaviness" in low speed turns?

3K views 16 replies 14 participants last post by  02hdvrod 
#1 ·
I've recently noticed that on occassion in a low speed (under 10MPH) turn my front end feels "heavy". Almost like it requires 20% more steering input than normal. I know I'm not imagining this, after 14K I know how the bike feels in turns. I had this happen 1 time a couple of months ago and it dissappeared. I also went on a vacation and left the bike sitting for 2 weeks and I'm sure it didn't feel this way when I parked it. Any Ideas?
 
#14 ·
02hdvrod said:
I've recently noticed that on occassion in a low speed (under 10MPH) turn my front end feels "heavy". Almost like it requires 20% more steering input than normal. I know I'm not imagining this, after 14K I know how the bike feels in turns. I had this happen 1 time a couple of months ago and it dissappeared. I also went on a vacation and left the bike sitting for 2 weeks and I'm sure it didn't feel this way when I parked it. Any Ideas?
How many miles do you have on your tires? If you ride more on long or anytime the bike is not leaning much, your tire will wear flat more in the center making leaning harder. This may not be your problem but this has happen to me more than once.
 
#16 ·
Put her up on the lift this weekend and got the service manual out. Before doing anything I centered the front tire and gently, slowly turned it full left to full right several times. Occassionally I could feel what I think is a roller "sticking" in the head bearings. I started to go through the fall away adjustment procedure and when I loosened the pinch bolts something sounded like it popped and the fork tubes slid down in the trees to the caps. I tried turning the tire back and forth again and no longer felt binding in the bearing. This leads me to two new questions; 1) How are you properly adjusting fall away when after loosening the pinch bolts the forks slide down - changing the center of gravity 2) Is it possible that on a hard bump (train tracks?) that one of the tubes slipped in the trees slightly causing binding between the two trees? I also noticed in the service manual that the distance for the forks to stick out above the top tree is shown as .025". I believe that by the photo - and how my bike was set up this should be .25". Any thoughts?
 
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