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Trousersnake, ginger and all 1090 owners

3K views 27 replies 13 participants last post by  Phil williams 
#1 ·
Hello, just wonder if you have the bars shake at about 40mph? quite a violent shake
then it goes when you speed up?...i think maybe its rear suspension too stiff?
checked head bearings seem ok, seems to eat front tyres too, got those metzler tyres
on pretty soft wonder if they are shit? this will be xmas bike fixing you see ,its been like it a while so now is time to sort it
thanks
 
#3 ·
Bet it's tyres. Could be badly balanced. might just not suit the bike. My SMT used to get evil head shakes at certain speeds. Couldn't find a thing wrong with the chassis or suspension. Changed screens, mirrors, took off hand guards. Made no difference. Binned the Metzeler Z8 tyres and put of some Dunlop Roadsmarts and instant calmness.
 
#6 ·
I now have what I would call a slight shimmy on the front when coasting, seems to come in about 45 mph and only happens (or should I say can only be felt) when slowing down whilst coasting. If you take your hands off the bars you can see them shake a little.
My V-strom 650 did the same but the shaking was more violent.

The cause for me are the crappy TrailAttack 2's.
Their tread pattern has big ridges across the tyre and these suffer from scalloping as they wear, and when that happens it seems to shake the bars at about 40.

Thankfully on the TA3's they've ditched that tread pattern.
So.. you can check your front tyre with a torch. Shine it down the tyre (along the surface at a low angle) and on either side (just off the centre) you should see lips (or dips). If so this is likely the cause.
Getting a new tyre for my V-strom cured it, and next year I probably bin the TA2 I have on my 1190.
 
#16 ·
I now have what I would call a slight shimmy on the front when coasting, seems to come in about 45 mph and only happens (or should I say can only be felt) when slowing down whilst coasting. If you take your hands off the bars you can see them shake a little.
My V-strom 650 did the same but the shaking was more violent.
My 1090 did this, but only noticeable if taking both hands off bars whilst coasting down, that was on the OE Metzeler Tourance Nexts, had a few other bikes do this over the years including my V-Strom 650.
 
#9 ·
well this was my thought,its that feeling when i ride dirt bike and rear is all wrong suspension and tyre allways cures it , road bike might be different?
trouser we have looked at front to see if its misshapen , its ok not too bad , and as i said this thing seems to eat tyres as in distorted really fast , i reckon as its BF bike he needs a 1190 lol i have gone from kinda liking mine to bloody love the thing! at first i loved 1090 but thats soon faded :D i will report back the findings ,xmas in bike sheds it is!!
 
#8 ·
i experienced this when I had my 990 adv r. When de accelerating with my hands off the bars around 40 mph. I wasn’t able to cure it completely but it was improved greatly as follows. Trued front wheel to perfection. Balanced front wheel to perfection, included reseating in circumference the front tyre on rim to reduce amount of balance weight used. I feel it was def front wheel tyre combo, was always perfect when holding the bars though.
 
#10 ·
When the rear is gone on mine now I change them both as a pair. Not cheap every 3-4000 miles but I get a sweet handling bike at all times.
Adventure bikes with centralised mass and a lot of weight transfer fore and aft seem to eat front tyres. I've never got anywhere near the legal limit on a front tyre before it's change. If they don't scallop they'll go thruppenny bit. If you stand up when you're riding and look down on the front you can see it clear as day. When my front goes like that, whatever the tread depth, it's history.
 
#15 ·
As per Frog and Shipdamite. Reset the front wheel and ensure it’s torqued correctly. Then check rear to front wheel alignment. Assuming you don’t have a laser alignment kit then just use string around the rear wheel and then run parallel past the front wheel and adjust the rear wheel until the strings either side of the front wheel are equal distance from the wheel. It’s a bit fiddly as every time you move the rear wheel you need to reset the strings but it works very wheel.
If you google it you’ll get a step by step guide.
 
#17 ·
Never had that with mine. But I gave up on dual purpose tyres within a month of buying the bike. I've since run Metzeler Roadtec 01s, Conti Road Attacks and now, my favourite so far, Road 5s. never had a hint of instability.

I did have an issue with wheel alignment once but it didn't produce bar shaking so much as a choppy ride, as if the forks were sticking. Correcting the alignment solved it immediately.
 
#19 ·
Thanks all, think new tyres start from scratch with all what everbody says then see, we never owned Adv bikes before and i reckon you may be right with the tyres go all out of shape way faster, 1090 has a smaller front tyre as well . Road 5s or contis? Thats next dilema lol
Thanks again humans, still getting the old bf interested in a 1190 though....i put seed of dought in his head lol
 
#20 ·
Tyre wise, both Conti RA3s and Road 5s are equally good. The Michelins have a sports tyre profile so if you like to throw it about a bit they're ideal. They will egg you on. Once past a certain angle of lean they start to tip really quickly. Some riders like that, others find it unsettling. Grip, wet and dry is exceptional and I've not had any problems with a shoulder forming on the joint between the two compounds.

The Contis will also take any amount of spirited riding but they're a more conservative sports touring profile and if you like to rag it the front will wear fairly rapidly and when the rear starts to flatten the steering really slows.

If you're not a hooligan both will offer 5K mileages from the rear. The Michelins give a plusher ride but the Contis offer massive feedback and the stability and amount of sheer bite you get from the front end when it's buried deep into a corner is incredible. I also think the Contis are better in the winter. They warm faster than the Michelins and the feedback inspire great confidence in poor conditions.

If you're coming from dual purpose tyres the Contis are the natural progression and probably the ones to try first. The Michelins will feel very different amd might take more getting used to after duals.
 
#22 ·
The Michelins have a sports tyre profile so if you like to throw it about a bit they're ideal. They will egg you on. Once past a certain angle of lean they start to tip really quickly. Some riders like that, others find it unsettling.....

The Michelins will feel very different and might take more getting used to after duals.
There are a few theories on this Michelin quirk (lots of people online discussing this oddity) but you can see and feel (by touch) that sudden drop-off, which means for a short while the bike is on a narrow knife edge, some people also think / suspect it may also be the change of compounds giving the feeling either alone or combination with that sharp edge....

...Whatever it is I don't like it, I find I am often cornering on that sharp edge and it feels horrible, and for me removes confidence. I did start to gel with it a bit more on a Trip to the Alps where I had much better roads and found myself more often able to throw it over further and faster, but it still shit me up a little each time it crossed that section of the tyre. As for grip I can report no problems wet or dry.

The problem with tyres they can be very personal, a really shit tyre is just that, but all the premium ones are arguably very close and few of us can get near their limits, so it comes down to how we find the feedback at our limits.

Got a set of Road Attack 3's in the garage ready for my next big trip, happy to leave the Michelins on and finish them off over winter / spring on local blasts.
 
#23 ·
My Mrs loves the Michelins on her MT07 as it makes the bike is so flickable. When I first rode it I though something must be loose because the back end felt like it slid out sideways as to tip it in.
My SD came with Michelins on it and I don't think I got on with them that well. Then the rear squared off and the front triangled and the bike felt horrible.
So I put a pair of battlax bt20 evo's on there and it felt much better. I have since done a track day on them and now regularly take them to within a few mm of the edges, and they feel great.

The BT20's are a much flatter profile, if you look at the back of both our bikes you'd swear mine has a wider rear tyre, yet the are the same size and I've even measured them too. It's just the extra height of the Mich that makes them look skinny.
 
#24 ·
I find the main problem with instability, bar shake, is the centre profile of the rear tyre. The adventure/dual sport tyres come loaded with a heavy tyre pattern. Once this wears in the centre the foot print of the tyre isn't Uniform. You can mitigate this by changing suspension and tyre pressures. My front tyres curp, wear poorly and feel horrible on the slab but cause very little instability.

I'd suggest if you feel its the front tyre causing bar shake, stick a new rubber ring on the rear and go for a spin next tyre change. Then the next time you have bar shake with a worn rear, change the front tyre and see if that cures the problem. Or just do as I do, just ride the bike with a lower top end speed until you put new hoops on, change your riding habits rather than changing tyres to get the 80+ mph stability.
 
#25 ·
In over 30,000 miles on the 1090 / 1190 / 1290 I have not had any wear related "issues", new hoops always feel nice, but not yet had any that went really square or badly cupped, back in pre-historic times I had a GPZ900R and then an RG500 with 16" fronts and they would lose their shape really quickly and start to cup.

I have also not had any high speed stability issues - at least not until way into 3 figures with 2 huge metal Panniers and a top box, so cannot blame the tyres for that.

Following on from TS I have noticed many dual sport tyres and sporty-touring tyres have a very rounded shape, my new Conti Road Attack 3's have a way more shallow profile than the Road 5's as do the OE Pirelli Scorpion Trail 2's. Very steep profiled tyres can make you look like a right ponce, I would have to lean further than Rossi to scrub the rear Road 5 to the edge, and further than Marquez to get anywhere near the edge of the front tyre.
 
#26 ·
Got my Road 5s to the edge. :D

But they don't go there that often and I can tell when they are. And that's the point. On of the reasons I went over to them from the Conti RA3s was because I was on the edge of the Contis far too often. On every other ride I was getting that warning shimmy that Contis give you when you reached the limit. It isn't a nice feeling to be halfway round a bend and needing more lean so you don't run wide, only to be told by your tyres that you can't have any. At least Contis tell you when you've reached the limit. Most tyres don't and a half barrel profile makes it hard to gauge where you are on them through the seat of the pants, so you won't know you're close to overcooking it until it's too late.

It's all very well having no chicken strips but unlike proper sports rubber, sports touring tyres aren't intended to spend too much time on their edge, especially not on an adventure bike with a high centre of gravity and skinny wheels. It might give you bragging rights at your local bike meet but it leaves you with no margin for error, and feedback and stability is greatly reduced. It's a low-side waiting to happen.
Sports tyres are at least designed for edge grip. The Road 5s have the same profile as the sports Power RS's and feature a wide, stable and grippy edge strip which you can feel distinctly when you get onto it so you know where you are on the tyre. Better to have a grippy, sporty tyre with a bit of a strip on it than a touring tyre with no safety margin left.
 
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