Fishtailing

forty_caliber

Standard Bore
Joined
Nov 3, 2015
Messages
8
Location
Texas
Took the R3T out for a cruise yesterday. Clear and about 60 degrees outside. Dry asphalt pavement. Made a left from a stop sign and the rear wheel started fishtailing back and forth during the turn.

I backed off the throttle and applied rear brake to stop the fishtailing and continued riding. The incident didn't repeat and the bike was handling normally.

Any opinions as to what caused the fishtailing?

.40
 
My normal take is to be a smartas$$ when answering questions like this but just not feeling it today. I suppose something slick on the pavement my have found its way to your back tire either when you rolled up to the stop or right after pulling away. Most of the rubber compounds on MC tires is softer on the edges thus giving more traction. Granted that is not 100% of the time but in general terms, one needs more traction when leaned over therefore the manufacturers change the compound to accommodate that.

I suppose you have considered that maybe you just gave too much throttle input at that time.


Back to the tire, how much thread do you have? A slick rubber will at time slip more easily in a low friction area.


Try to do some troubleshooting by going back to the same spot and try to duplicate the issue. Maybe you can gain some insight this way when you expect it to happen.

Good luck.
 
Thanks for taking it seriously Boog. Scared the crap out of me. It was probably water in the gutter or maybe I was applying a little front brake. IDK. The tires are nearly new so I don't think it is a worn tread issue. I was just glad that I was able to recover without wrecking the new bike. I'm still getting to know her.

.40
 
How long had you been riding? Were the tires sufficiently warmed up? Just like with our race car, first few laps on cold tires were as difficult as the last few on worn tires. Of course anything on the pavement, water, sand, oil, etc, would have exacerbated the problem. The R3T has a lot of torque down low in the RPM range and a fairly skinny rear tire. As Bobby pointed out, leaned over shrinks your contact patch.
 

Happened a couple of blocks from the house. Definitely cold tires.

.40
 
It was less than 2 weeks ago, on our first cold-ish day, I had just got the Bonneville out of the garage, and made it 100 feet to the intersection and got too aggressive with the throttle too quickly and laid it down.
Cold tires, cold asphalt, not thinking.

I'm glad you saved yours.
 
tar banding, oil patch, diesel patch, leaf, chip bag, sand/dust/gravel, road markings, manhole cover, lot of stuff

only takes a little thing to break traction, and it'll keep spinning for a bit
 
Cold tires, perhaps a colder road surface than you normally ride on plus a steep lean angle with a wee bit too much throttle would do that quite easily. One must adjust one's trim level for one's conditions. Check your tire pressure as well, as it's being too high could have contributed to your slipstreaming, as well!
 
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