wiggle at speed

[erok011]

i have a naked 04 600. I pulled the plastics to sand and paint, but had no idea how long it was going to take. While riding down highway last night about 80 mph (it was pretty windy here in tampa) i felt some wiggle in the front end. maybe a couple inches of movement, but enought to be disconcerted. I am pretty new to all this and felt the need to ask. Is this normal feel in the wind the lack of fairings and windscreen or maybe something in the suspension or forks or something? Should I feel any movement at 80 on a windy highway?

[Zepp]

On the highway bikes blow around, wiggle and lean all the time. It Depends on the vehicles ahead of you and the winds around you. Get around trucks and trailers and you can get some cool buffeting effects.

[Novelldude]

Just to make sure we're talking the same thing...

Wiggle - you mean the bike blowing around and feeling unsettled underneath you?

or

Shimmy - At speed, the handlebars tend to vibrate but it goes away at low speeds.

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Wiggle = probably wind and keep an eye on it to make sure nothing is amiss

Shimmy = new head bearings could be required.

[diavolo]

Also check condition/pressure in your tires. Could be a feathered/cupped front tire - due to improper pressure, worn, out of balance etc.

[erok011]

may be either a shimmy or wiggle, how would i go about checking the head bearings? tires eem to be in pretty good shape.

[scottynoface]

I had a bad front tire give me nasty shakes from 30-60mph. Odds are it's tires before bearings.

[Novelldude]

To check head bearings, put the bike up on a centerstand or lift if ya got one, and then push and pull the forks away from and then toward you. If there's any play in the forks at all, it's bearings.

To check for cupping of tires, get some baby powder and squirt a dusting across the width of the whole tire and cover a decent section length wise. Note: don't rub it on, that is important for the next bit. Now... Roll over the powdered section and then see if you have any undisturbed powder left on the tire. Where the powder didn't get smushed, you have a high spot on the tire. If you look, you'll see a scalloped kind of pattern to it. That's cupping and might be adding to the wiggle you are experiencing.

ND

[Dago]

Also, balancing issues in the wheel may cause . . .

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coq2awd8DQI"]YouTube - Suzuku Hayabusa Highway Crash/Wypadek Suzuki Hayabusa[/ame]

I doubt this is what happened to you though, everytime my front wheel has done that sort of wiggle, it's scared the crap out of me and I wasn't like, "my front wheel wiggled a little."

It should be noted that the action from this video is caused by the front tire being turned improperly when landing the wheelie, but that's the same sort of action that will occur from improperly balanced or out of shape wheels.

Even with the fairings at anything above 40 the bike will move around a lot with the slightest breeze, but if it's holding a good line with no wind and none of the other things described in this thread are an issue I wouldn't worry about it, especially since it's naked.

Sidenote, I was once driving down the highway and a C6 Corvette passed my Mustang at 170+ mph. It literally almost blew me off the road with windblast and I needed to correct for it as if my rear was skidding with about a 1/2 turn of the steering wheel to stay straight. Can't imagine what it would have done to me on a motorbike, or if a car any less aerodynamic than the super slippery C6 had been doing that speed.