Speed-wobbles happen on many things from skateboards to motorcycles, sometimes.

Fork braces (or otherwise stiffer front suspension) are the common fix on affected motorcycles, whereas tighter trucks and/or stiffer bushings are the fix on skateboards.

It's nothing remotely confined to Harleys.

My 1978 BMW R100RS would do that with Metzler tires. Never had a problem with Continentals. Well over 135,000 miles on that when I sold it.

Anyone heard of steering dampers? Stock on old Harleys and many Sportbikes:

https://www.google.com/search?...IIQ&biw=1621&bih=914

Sleeveless shirt, and NO Gloves!

That guy must have one hell of a road rash....Down on the pavement in front of the bike (The 'Hogsley Wobblesome' sliding behind him), his shoulder was likely ground flat!

I had it happen once om my Valkyrie at 95 mph on I95 while passing a car. I was quite sure I was going to die. After finally getting it stopped and cleaning my shorts,and setting for awhile. I checked the bike out for the cause I found a almost flat front tire from a nail I had picked up. I am very careful in my pre-ride check over not to miss such again. A tank slapper ride is not something you want to happen twice at speed.

Can't you install a damper on Harley's like a sport bike to stop speed wobble?

I assume the fake news media made up the name 'death wobble'

I notice the guy in this video didn't die, yet they call it the 'death wobble'

From the person who posted the video.

quote:

Published on Jun 30, 2017

This guy merged onto the I-80E (Sacramento, CA) on his motorcycle as we were driving in the fast lane. As he merged, his bike would shake and wobble. He sometimes would only have one hand on the handle bars while it was shaking!! We couldn't figure out why it was shaking, but we noticed it would only do it once he hit high speeds.

We paced him for 5-10 miles after watching him "almost" loose control (about 5 or 6 times), so I got my phone out, thinking "its only a matter of time before he crashes" and I wanted the video as evidence in case anyone else got hurt.

Sure enough the very moment I get my phone out, happens to be the time he loses control. We pulled over immediately.....called 911, and help the man (and his bike) off to the side of the road as quickly as possible. He did walk over to the right shoulder by himself. His face was really mashed up (his nose looked broken) and arms covered in blood. Crazy road rash!!! I still wonder how he's doing
Oh, and the sirens you hear in the background aren't because he's being chased by the cops....my kids were watching peppa pig.....it was just a coincidence

The wobble on the touring line was a conversation had during the late 90's through the early 2000's

FLH models (touring) have a different front end design with significantly less rake making turning easier which makes sense on a very heavy bike.

Causes were not design related, most were found to be the result of either bad tires, underinflated tires, improperly torqued neck bearing, over packed (weighted) bikes.

I've only had the wobble show up on my Heritage which is a different line, with different geometry a few times and it was always relative to rear tire condition or pressure being low.

Air up the tire to 40 psi and it is gone. On my 09 it would happen around 20 to 30 mph but only if I let go of the bars, HD issued a work bulletin that the front fork bearing needed to be tightened to solve it, and doing so fixed the problem.

IN 09 the frame was completely redesigned for the FLH line (baggers) the general consensus was pre 09 it was maintenance issues, tires, tire pressure, overloading bike, bearing setting not a design flaw.

From 95 to 2015 hd produced 1.66 million touring bikes, the total number of problems and complaints on this is just about nil, has it happened sure, when you build a couple million bikes in one line over 20 years you'll have issues, but if it was that big a problem HD would not be able to sell touring models.

Question.

You are riding in your bike alongside me. I'm in my car. Your bike starts to furiously wobble. What would you prefer that I'd do?

1) Slow down;
2) Speed up;
3) If possible, change lane.

Especially in Florida, all choices carry risk to the biker. If I slow down, other drivers might speed up. If I speed up, other drivers might do so too. If I change lanes, you just know that someone is going to want to occupy my previous space.

Why did he reach for the right grip with his left hand?
Trying to disengage a throttle lock?

Seems kind of stupid to me to continue at speed when it had been acting up for miles.

Dang good thing he had a helmet on.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
Can't you install a damper on Harley's like a sport bike to stop speed wobble?

Dampers, fork braces, different forks, sometimes just different tires, there are many options.

When a rider experiences the wobbles the correct thing for them to do is slow down, or just ride it out if they know their bike/etc and know how much feels normal-ish.

If they don't, I'm still not sure an adjacent vehicle needs to do anything.

Though I've seen many bikes of all types and skateboards get the wobbles once in a while, I've only ever seen one wreck because of them and that was a skateboarder doing 45mph.

quote:

Originally posted by jehzsa:
Question.

You are riding in your bike alongside me. I'm in my car. Your bike starts to furiously wobble. What would you prefer that I'd do?

1) Slow down;
2) Speed up;
3) If possible, change lane.

4) Video it and throw it on Youtube for me so I'll be famous.

There were 2 empty lanes between the car and the bike.

A motorcycle magazine had an article maybe 5-10 years ago about a photographer who regularly took photos of a curvy stretch of a popular motorcycle road. You can go on the website and if you see your picture, you can buy it. If the photographer catches you crashing, which is frequent, the photos are free.

One of the captions (loosely quoted) of a picture of a Harley with the chassis grinding the pavement with the rear tire not touching pavement: "The tank top that just moments ago seemed so light and airy, suddenly doesn't seem like such a good idea" This has stuck with me and influenced me to wear very good protection.

I was riding my 1982 V45 Sabre near another motorcycle (I think an older BMW) when we reached grooved road planed for resurface. He was obviously having much trouble, and I had no reaction on my bike.

I've had two since 2009. Both FL touring and neither had an issue. As stated, what was the tire pressure and what condition was the tires plus make and model.Were the wheels balanced when the tires were replaced? MANY shops have no clue, nor the equipment to properly balance bike rims.

My 94 Gold Wing had a wicked shake at speed. So did my Suzuki GS1150. The KZ1000 police bikes were known for it. The H@ Kaws were a handful at speed.

Looks like a common rear flat tire fall over, blow out, call it what you will, seen it before. I have a 1954, 1961, 1971, 2005 and 2009, none of them wobble. the guy was not paying attention to warnings to STOP!!!
Carl

I rented a nearly new Dyna 2 years ago and noticed right away that the front wheel felt like it was loose in the forks. They have so much damping/isolation for vibration control that the front end felt unconnected. It was easy to tell since I was riding a Ninja 600 at the time, and it felt extremely tight compared to the HD. I can sure see that happening on the loosey goosey HDs. I had friends experience this on BMWs and Honda Gold Wings. Scares me just thinking
about it.

He was looking for the "point of failure", and found the "point of no return" OUCH!