Taking delivery of a new bike next week and after reading about quite a few cases of high speed tank slappers when fully luggaged up I’m thinking a good investment would be a steering damper.
Now I’ve seen the ones that attach to the bars and get how they work as you can see the mechanics of it, barrel piston etc.
The only ones I can find for the bike I’m getting are under bar ones and I’m guessing they work on a similar principle but not sure.
Anyone know anything about them or have one fitted?
"Under bar steering damper" is a bit of a loose term. My old air head BMW has one of those that’s attached between the bottom fork yoke (or triple clamp if you want it in American) and the frame so that’s well “under bar”. I’ve also seen dampers attached under the top yoke back to the frame, twin mini dampers attached between the top yoke and the back of the headstock (I’d guess a rare set-up) and a double ended damper (even rarer at a guess) with the tube clamped and push rods at both ends.
However a hydraulic damper is arranged, they all work much the same as the not so pretty ones that are above the top yoke.
Just make sure you can reset the damper easily in gloved hands while on the move. The last thing you need is to find yourself in London traffic after a blip down the motorway with a fully loaded steering damper.
Yep it was a bit of a loose decription as I’m a little out of my depth here.
It is the triple tree variety that I am looking at. KTM do their own but it would appear from looking around that the version by Scott seems to be the more popular but that looks as though it may just be with the off road fraternity.
Guess I need to do some more digging but I have time as the first long trip isn’t scheduled until November.
