i've recently learned how to stoppie on my bike and i love it, but i'm concerned it's causing things to wear out, and am wondering what i should keep an eye on. i've started getting head shake when i let go of the gas at 50, the steering head feels a tad loose, and i'm able to grab the rear spring/shock assy and twist it back and forth a couple degrees without too much resistance. i've done a couple of wheelies too, and when i have, i've brought them down pretty hard. never big wheelies, but still dropping the front down pretty hard.

 

well, you're putting an aweful lot of straign on the steering head bearing, so that will wear out faster. could explain your wobble... also your rear shock seal is seeing a much hier than normal load, and that could fail. your wheelies could cause your battery to fail, your fork seals to fail, your fuel pump... slamming the bike down is a lot like a soft crash. think of it that way.

 

This should be in the stunting section...
with the wheelies (i assume you're clutching them up) you need to give it gas when it's comming down...this softens the landing dramatically...try it, you'll notice an immidiate difference.

 

eh i dont care so much about wheelies. they scare me - i'm afraid i'm gonna go over like i've seen so many people do. when you're wheelieing you've gotta worry about clutch, gas, front brake ...endos (i think that's more what i'm doing) you just have to worry about adjusting braking pressure. steering head bearings i was thinking were ready to go - that's the clunking i've got. my fork seals don't appear blown (no oil on the fork rods or whatever you call them), but it's possible the rear spring is getting worn out from the *** end coming down hard. i'm getting better about bringing them down soft, but it's not perfect yet. so being able to grab the rear shock reservoir and twist the shock/spring assy back and forth - does that indicate spring wear or upper spring mount wear or what? because i'm pretty sure i couldn't turn it before.

 

i dont do stoppies, but one of my buddies with an rr says he got a steering dampner and it made a world of diff while doing them. Ino that they are a great help for riding, but never thought of it for stoppies untill he mentioned it. ino mait. wise it wont help but might help your stoppies become smoother and help you feel more incontrol.

 

oh i dont have any shake while i'm doing stoppies - only when i let go of the bars coasting. stoppies are very smooth - the concern with them was just that they were causing undue wear. by the way, can the steering bearings be tightened to get rid of that slack, instead of replacing them? looks like a lot of work to replace 2 bearings, 2 seals, and like 4 races, and remove and reinstall the forks, wheel, fender, clipons, brake, et al. any thoughts?

 

Endos put a huge amount of stress on the front fork assembly. Not to mention you're slamming down the rear end to the pavement like it's free-falling from 2 feet. The bike isn't built for that type of abuse, and stuff is going to break.

Not to be a dick or anything, but I'm going to say it. If you don't want your stuff to break, don't abuse it.

 

it's a given it's going to break, just like the bike will eventually wear out if i ride it or get torn up if i crash it. i don't want to know how not to break it - if i was that worried about it getting messed up, i wouldn't ride. i just want to know the easiest, cheapest way to fix what i've done, and prevent problems my riding has caused from making the bike dangerous to ride. so what do you think?

 

Again, not trying to be a dick.......

If you want to prevent your bike from breaking in the future and being dangerous to ride, then stop riding in a way that you know breaks the bike (aka. Stoppies). You said it yourself, the bike started acting up after you started stoppies. Obviously, this caused the bike to wear quickly/break, so I would stop the stoppies if you want the parts to stop breaking.

On the problems you currently have with your bike, I would fix the bike (and don't cut-corners, because that just leads to more problems.) Have it fixed the right way, stop the stoppies, and you should be home free.

 

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