EricV
Riding, farkling, riding...
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I'm seeing two common items that are relevant; Rear tire balance and steering head bearings. I've experienced both of those and in my case, the rear out of balance was a massive amount, so it showed up at lower speeds and got progressively worse. Enough to make me stop and give the bike an immediate going over. In my case the previous tire had required probably 4 inches of rim weights, (forgotten how much actual weight), to balance. I needed a tire swap in the middle of a rally on a Sunday and the indi shop I used had no balancer, so they just changed the tire. Turned out the new tire was almost perfect w/o weights, but all that left over weight gave me a lot of shudder over 55-65 mph, and was horrible at higher speeds. I stopped, checked air pressure and everything else I could by the side of the road, then cut all of the weights off the wheel. Problem immediately solved!
The recent new rear tire on the OP bike suggests to me that the very first attack on this problem is to have it re-balanced. It may have thrown a weigh, or just been done poorly, or not at all. That the tire is on the bead correctly can be inspected at the same time. Easy and cheap. (Always do the easy and cheap stuff first)
Steering stem bearings tend to be more subtle and I usually notice this as tire wear long before I notice it in 'shudder' at any speed. We have legal 80 mph here, so the occasional 90 mph is not that big of a deal on the right roads. Still, if the owner can do this themselves, it certainly falls into the 'cheap and easy' category too. I would do one thing, ride and test, then try the next.
The comments about luggage, screen size and trunk, while a good thought, are really weave or instability issues, not a cyclic shudder response that the OP is commenting on.
With the email notification feature of the forum broken, who knows when the OP will be back around to read these responses.
Most of the time we encounter a new problem, it can be traced strait back to the very last thing we did. In this case, the new rear tire appears to be the smoking gun. It's also the easiest thing to check and rule out. Telling the shop to use extra care on the balance job because of the issue the rider is experiencing should help too.
I've worn out 12 sets of Heidenua K60s. Most of them on a 2012 Super Tenere. Many required zero weight to balance. A few required huge amounts of weight to balance. Most required just a small amount. Some shops don't usually balance 50/50 or dirt bike tires at all. Or even check them for balance because they believe you'll be off pavement so it won't matter.
I'm not excluding the steering stem bearings, because we know they tend to come loose an are lightly lubed by Yamaha at the factory, but I still suspect the rear tire balance as the primary issue here.
The recent new rear tire on the OP bike suggests to me that the very first attack on this problem is to have it re-balanced. It may have thrown a weigh, or just been done poorly, or not at all. That the tire is on the bead correctly can be inspected at the same time. Easy and cheap. (Always do the easy and cheap stuff first)
Steering stem bearings tend to be more subtle and I usually notice this as tire wear long before I notice it in 'shudder' at any speed. We have legal 80 mph here, so the occasional 90 mph is not that big of a deal on the right roads. Still, if the owner can do this themselves, it certainly falls into the 'cheap and easy' category too. I would do one thing, ride and test, then try the next.
The comments about luggage, screen size and trunk, while a good thought, are really weave or instability issues, not a cyclic shudder response that the OP is commenting on.
With the email notification feature of the forum broken, who knows when the OP will be back around to read these responses.
Most of the time we encounter a new problem, it can be traced strait back to the very last thing we did. In this case, the new rear tire appears to be the smoking gun. It's also the easiest thing to check and rule out. Telling the shop to use extra care on the balance job because of the issue the rider is experiencing should help too.
I've worn out 12 sets of Heidenua K60s. Most of them on a 2012 Super Tenere. Many required zero weight to balance. A few required huge amounts of weight to balance. Most required just a small amount. Some shops don't usually balance 50/50 or dirt bike tires at all. Or even check them for balance because they believe you'll be off pavement so it won't matter.
I'm not excluding the steering stem bearings, because we know they tend to come loose an are lightly lubed by Yamaha at the factory, but I still suspect the rear tire balance as the primary issue here.
