A bagger wobble case goes to trial.

[ms_tapestry]

Originally Posted by Luke611

If I was a Harley atty, I'd go over that bike with a fine toothed comb, looking for any mods that were done to it. Seems to me if anything's been changed, that is where I'd start driving the wedge of doubt. And who hasn't made some mod or another that an attorney could link to the cause of the crash. IMHO, that's where this could start to unravel. Couple that with a jury picked from non riders, and it's an uphill battle for the poor guy.






There are times I'm really glad I ride a Softail©.

Ditto. . .

[MegaGlide]

I think I'd be more apt to dismiss the wobble claims if several major law enforcement agencies hadn't experienced it during testing of unmodified Harleys submitted to them directly from the the MoCo.

[Homesick]

Originally Posted by Luke611

If I was a Harley atty, I'd go over that bike with a fine toothed comb, looking for any mods that were done to it. Seems to me if anything's been changed, that is where I'd start driving the wedge of doubt. And who hasn't made some mod or another that an attorney could link to the cause of the crash. IMHO, that's where this could start to unravel. Couple that with a jury picked from non riders, and it's an uphill battle for the poor guy.


There are times I'm really glad I ride a Softail©.

<detour> When did Ks get the Az state flag for a sky? </detour>

joe

[noodles]

Good thing he ain't a D00F or he would be in trouble for passing fellow doof's!!

[Fe Butte]

Originally Posted by MegaGlide

I think I'd be more apt to dismiss the wobble claims if several major law enforcement agencies hadn't experienced it during testing of unmodified Harleys submitted to them directly from the the MoCo.

CHP was one of them back in '06 - '07.

[MrSurly]

Originally Posted by Why_Me

I've seen it. Saw Ricky fighting for his life because of it. I vote real.

I APOLOGIZE FOR THE THREAD DRIFT


I'll have to chime in...
Definitely REAL. Very Very REAL.

I'll have to go just a bit more in depth, though.

C'mon, You knew I would(!)

I've had experience with two distinct versions of bagger wobble.

The first (I've seen it on four different baggers) was what the bike would do 'bone stock': in a fast sweeper when pressed, not just cruising it feels like the swing arm moves left/right/left/right slightly. Scary but controllable. The motion is contained to the rear of the chassis, and its repeatable. It only happens when you're riding aggressively; I would imagine that the majority of FL riders might ride years without experiencing it. I installed one of the several devices on the market and that wobble went away; I thought for good.

The second version was what Ed and others witnessed at ES: a long fast sweeper NOT PRESSING IT and the FRONT of the bike starts oscillating like mad-----TANKSLAPPER MAD while the ass end didn't seem to go goofy at all.

Admittedly, due to the fact that someone was hysterically screaming-like-a-little-girl inside my helmet, I might not be the best witness.
Because someone Above was watching over all of us, true disaster was avoided. Thank the Lord for that.

I rode the bike back from ES and was somewhat, um.. subdued in my riding style, at least for a little while. On the way back and for some weeks thereafter, I found that the wobble was somewhat repeatable with just the right combination of approach speed/lean angle/curve radius. I kept trying different approaches to try to pin down the secret but I found that the issue was becoming EASIER to induce as the miles were added, so I finally gave up(!) I later disassembled the bike. All the way down to pulling the swingarm and the forks; searching for cracks in the frame, loose parts, etc. I put the bike back together with a new rear tire, no other changes and the wobble was still there. I replaced the front tire; can't make it wobble now. The conclusion I am left with is that the ES wobble was due most likely to the tires having 13,500 miles on them. Though they had lots of tread left, the front was scalloped quite badly. I believe the condition of the front tire was the most apparent cause of that event, but I'm led back to the idea that there may be a more base cause in the design/geometry of the frame (maybe all the way back to the first FLH) that makes the touring frame susceptible to oscillation events. I just couldn't prove it.



I feel for the injured. I wish him luck in his case, while I expect he's going to have a huge hill to climb to prevail.


BTW: I dismiss entirely the argument that by re-designing the frame, the MOCO admitted some defect in the old design. That is simply specious and implies that no product development should be pursued.

Ricky

[LittleBear]

Bagger wobble is real in high speed corners when pushing the bike beyond the speed limit. This is due to the design of the rear swing arm being rubber mounted to the engine. The whole engine shifts in the frame causing the swing arm to change its angle and begin to resonate. Poor design but only an issue when pushing hard at high speeds in a corner. Lots of product out there to help this problem.

A wobble going straight down the road is related to loose/worn rear end parts, tire pressure or a front end problem. A loose rear axle can cause this. Worn swing arm bearing can cause it. A broken rear shock can cause it. Rear shocks not adjusted the same can cause it. The rear tire just starts steering the bike.
Most common front end problems are either a bad front tire or steering head bearing that are worn or adjusted wrong. As strange as it sounds, front end bearing that are too tight can cause a real tank slapper at speed easier than loose ones. The front end has to be able to oscillate back and forth to accommodate the road conditions, shock movement and wind buffeting. If it is too stiff, it starts to overcompensate and gets into a wobble. The rider usually helps the situation by grabbing on tighter and making the steering even stiffer causing the wobble to increase. I know it is hard to relax when it happens, but that is the only way to get out of a tank slapper.
Worn, out of balance, out of round and cupped tires will start their own oscillation at different speeds leading to the problem as well.

The new frame may help, but under the right conditions, or lack of the right conditions, depending on your view, any motorcycle can get into a wobble.

I feel for this guy, but I don't think H-D was to blame, the Dealer maybe for poor bike prep, but not the way the bike was designed.

[LittleBear]

Also, As he stated
"That's when McMahon said the motorcycle, which had only about 900 miles on it, began shaking and wobbling. When he tried to slow down, he said he felt it getting worse, so he sped up."

What part of that is so wrong. I have to believe it was a combination of poor bike prep and rider error.

[PeaceKeeper]

I have heard of it but never really experienced it. I have felt the normal crap like tar snakes and road defects. Baggers will never handle like sport bikes, they were not designed for that, that said I beat the tar out of mine on the dragon and felt nothing but torque and joy as she dug in and embarrassed a Goldwing. The bagger frame design has been around for years and when operated within its design parameters works well for what it is built for, comfort and touring. Add overweight loads, bad tires, poor maintenance, modifications and inexperienced riders anything can happen on any bike. I am not saying it did or did not happen, I was not there, but the rider will have to prove the cause, and unfortunately the cause of the majority of bike wrecks are operator error. There are literally hundreds of thousands of baggers out there on the road with only a handful of documented wobble issues. If it were an inherent design flaw I think they all would do it and we would hear more about it, and there would be many more wrecks. I have tried, and tried, and really tried to get my bike to wobble, no joy, the only time it even gets a little squirrelly is when the tires are shot, and that is a normal reaction to riding on cupped tires. I think they are isolated issues related to human error or specific maintenance issues. But it does suck, I feel bad for the guy.

[y2kflhr]

Originally Posted by LittleBear

Also, As he stated
"That's when McMahon said the motorcycle, which had only about 900 miles on it, began shaking and wobbling. When he tried to slow down, he said he felt it getting worse, so he sped up."

What part of that is so wrong. I have to believe it was a combination of poor bike prep and rider error.

great minds think alike

[SLOWHOUND]

Ride with BRMike and if it don't happen then I find it a little bit more than normal.I ride my Bagger hard and so does BRM ,I only get a little wobble when my ft tire was wornout/cupped ,other than that I scrape boards at 70 all the time going home from School.No wobble?

[route66paul]

If they could get the judge to ride the bike under similar circumstances maybe we would get a good outcome - if we could get all the lawyers and politicians to do it, we definately would get a good outcome.

[jasilva]

I regularly push mine in excess of 90 mph on fast mountain freeways(I-80 over Donner Pass) and get a slight wiggle in the bars on bumps in sweeping turns. A little disconcerting but not enough to slow me down. Just adjusted my steering head up slightly tighter than HD specs and it's mostly gone now. Tighter being it just barely twitches into the third swing.

[orbit]

Settlement reached...

<clicky>

[Fe Butte]

Yeah they settled in a way it won't benifit the rest of us.