Sidecar Flip
Living Legend
PF:
Here's my take on the "hop" as you describe it. There are a few contributing factors all of which can and will induce ill handling characteristics to any bike, especially a demo bike that gets flogged by every Tom, *****and Harry that comes along and probably isn't checked thoroughly between flogging sessions:
1. The tire is close to being shot and is flat in the middle with rounded edges. This will cause a hop as you heel over the bike in a turn and the transition from "flat" to "rounded" is actually a thin line if you will. As the tire traverses that line, you will feel it in the seat of your drawers as a "hop", especially if you are driving hard in the corner. The outward inertia of the bike causes that sensation.
2. The tire is under inflated. Under inflated tires cause handling problems and are prone to blow outs caused by internal heat buildup and failure of the tire carcass. Heavy loads, ie: you and 90% of the population that ride bikes (me included), exacerbate the problem. A blowout is a big no-no. You are going to get severe gravel rash for sure. CHECK THE PRESSURE BEFORE YOU RIDE, EVEN A DEMO BIKE. You are going to flog it. That's human nature. You don't want to be sliding across the road on your arse collecting debris in your epidermis.
3. Rear shocks. Triumph isn't going to put Koni's or Progressive shocks on the R3. The production shocks are fine for 90% of all conditions encountered in everyday riding as envisioned by Triumph Engineering. A lot of folks seem to change the rear shocks but never modify the front forks which also contribute (actually more so) to handling woes than the rear dampers. Why? Because the rears are a bolt on scenario whereas the front forks (Showa) are a little harder to modify. Not impossible, just a little more intensive labor wise.
4. Suspension components, bushings and machined parts of the drive line: You have numerous rubber bushed joints and machined surfaces in the final drive as well as the swing arm bearings that, as they progress in age, begin to loose the factory specified fit. In other words, they get sloppy. That can and will contribute to handling quirks. All bikes as they collect mileage and repeated abuse suffer from all these problems if you will.
I always do a walk around before I ride ANY bike, whether it's mine, a demo or a friends bike and that includes checking the tire pressure. On tire pressure, just thump the tires with your toe or wrap the sidewall with your closed hand. If the sidewall is firm and unyielding, you are in the ballpark on pressure. If it's mushy and yields easily, get an accurate pressure gage and check the pressure against the maximum pressure listed on the sidewall. It's your life, enjoy it....safely.
On a somewhat different note, Your posts would be easier to read if you'd load a shareware program like "i.e.Spell" and have it running in the background so that you may check your posts for grammatical and punctuation errors.
