Got an issue that's doing my head in. Any advice will be gratefully received!
A few days ago when riding on the road at around 50kmh on my KLX, I noticed that the bike started weaving from side to side quite badly.
My initial thought was that I had a flat tyre. Visually both looked fine, but I went straight to the servo to check pressures. Both tyres were within a couple of psi of where they normally are, so that wasn't the issue. The bike also wants to fight back when going around a roundabout or corner at slow speed.
I had a new set of Kenda 270's fitted approx 1000kms ago. I did notice that they are a bit squirmy at highway speeds, which I found out after purchasing can be an issue with this tyre. Today, I went to a 100kmh road and the weave/squirm also appears worse at this speed.
I've visually checked the tyres and also had the front wheel off the ground to see if anything appears out of place with the steering.
Could this be a wheel balance issue? If so, could/would this have caused the problem to appear out of nowhere?
The tyres were fitted by the local ITS and I'm not sure if they were balanced. I really need to get this sorted as I don't feel safe while riding at all!
Cheers in advance.

 

Sounds like steering head bearings

 

My first thought also. Put the bike up on a stand ( 5 gal bucket works well ) Feel the steering. Smooth or notchy? Possibly smooth but with play?

Balance is more of trying to ride a po-go stick feeling.

 

I seem to be sensitive to steering head issues and road wobble.
What I found is that the road surfacing of some roads will have little ripples in them that are not apparent unless looking for them. They will make the steering wobble.
Tire selection is important, but once you put a new set of tires on, your probably riding on them till they are done. On my beamer I did remove brand new Kenda's due to tire issues, they are not the best for bikes with soft suspensions as they were out of round, or something, but they were not going to be on my bike.
Tire pressure also is a factor, if you experience tire wobble, go up 4/down 4 psi on the pressure for a test run, once you find out which psi helps, one can fine tune the psi in that direction to reduce wobble.
Head bearings get notches and feels more like a 'stucksion' thing, where it kinda wants to go straight, then left, then right, at 20-30mph, not really a wobble.

 

Check your chain tensioners to make sure both of them are even so your rear tire is straight. Could also check your swing arm to make sure there's no side to side play. Check wheel bearings to make sure there's no wobble in the wheel. Check for oil leaking out of the fork seals. Lastly, hold your front wheel in place and try to move your bars to see if there's a fork bracing issue. If none of that works, try riding in MPH and going through a rotary instead of a roundabout. I never trusted that metric stuff. Haha. Good luck.

 

Check fork binding. The front wheel was removed and reinstalled and it's possible there is some binding in the forks.

Here's a thread that may help: http://advrider.com/index.php?thread...guide.1250293/

 

One thing that shouldn't happen when a shop does the job - did they actually get the bead entirely seated around the rim? If it isn't you can see it.

 

I also have a similar issue with an '06 KLX250 (w/ 331 Big Bore kit). Bike is great off road and on, but on-road, the front end gets a little wobbly/jumpy/unstable starting around 60mph. Is it because of:
1) the 90/10 off-road tires? scorpion Rally 90/90-21 on front - Scorpion XC 207100-18 M/C 66M on rear.
2) at higher speeds the front fender is catching too much wind (I have seen many "half-fenders" for sale where the back end is basically not there). If I back off the throttle it drives normal again.
3) Is it one of these things?
4) A combination?
5) something else (tire pressure) ?

I have only had the bike about 3 weeks. Don't plan to do LOTS of on-road driving, but it's so much fun I'm enjoying the extended riding weather in the northeast. Thanks in advance.

 

Turned out that it was the steering head bearings.
Thanks for all the comments and advice.