some tubes have that L shaped stem already mounted on them.

I agree that makes checking and adjusting tire pressure very easy. +1

Perfect if your doing lots of solo and 2up riding.

hey, thanks for all the replies and help. i jacked the bike up last night and spun the front tire. bad news: there is a noticeable movement side to side. good news: this may be the culprit. so i'll have to get it trued and see where to go from there. i've trued bicycle rims before, but i don't think i want to do it on the Savage. I looked up how to do a motorcycle wheel and i would need to buy more tools, and stands, and dial indicators than would make it worth it. hopefully this will cure it and won't cost me too much.

WD, i'm not sure how a hard and soft tire combo, or really any combo, would cause the headset to lock up... might cause it to ride funny but, then again, you're the one with the scars to prove it.

i went ahead and took the tire to a shop to true it. $35 to true and $25 to dismount and remount the tire. not bad, seeing as how everyone else wanted $70 per hour  . thought about doing it myself, but i don't have any of the equipment to do it, not to mention any bead breakers or tire irons. i know i could build the stuff for cheaper, but i have an apartment so i can't really keep that sort of stuff in a garage or anything. whatever, these guys do dirt bike rims all the time so i trust them with something that could potentially kill me  
i'll take it on the highway this weekend; hour and a half to where my parents live for gettysburg bike week. we'll see if truing solved the problem. i'm gonna harass the sh!t out of some harley riders this weekend haha. i hope i see some other savages there too!  

groupus wrote on 07/04/10 at 18:19:43:


Gripping the bars too tightly can cause a slight wobble to develop and then increase. The grip causes a feedback loop, the more effort you put into stopping the wobble will actually make it worse.

truing didn't do anything  . best solution now is to slow down or ride with one hand. i've gone over the head bearing, front rim, rear wheel alignment and pressure, and weight distribution. only thing i can figure is its the tires??? so if the problem is the difference between the sticky avon front and the harder dunlop rear, what type of tires could i replace the rear with, other than another avon, that would have the same kind of rubber compound? (rear will wear out before the front)

at about 70 is where it starts and as i accelerate, it gets more intense. it doesnt always do it, but at those speeds it is provoked into a wobble much more easily and doesn't want to stop. at lower speeds i can start a wobble by shaking it, but it'll return to straight.
as far as seated properly, i can see the edge of the whitewall vary distance from the rim as it spins. is this something i should talk to the guys who trued the wheel about because they had to remove and remount and balance the tire when they were done? but theres no difference between now and before they fooled with the thing... so maybe thats not where the issue is, unless they remounted it in exactly the same way as before.  

The whitewall section is going to have some color break waviness. That's normal, the bead edge doesn't get much attention.

Go out to your bike, kneel at the front tire, close your eyes, and "feel up" the front tire like your prom date. Any high spots, low spots, side to side peaks or edges?. Do the same to the back tire.

Deflate the tires and roll the bead just enough to see if the wire has taken a "set", or kink. No need to pull them for that check, your thumb will move the sidewall in enough. Go all the way around both tires, both sides, using a good light source.

Get on the manufacturers' websites and send them the coding from the sidewalls. Not the size code, the tiny printing that will tell them when the tire was made and at which plant. Bike tires do have a shelf life, just because they are new to you does not mean they are fresh tires. No telling how long they were on the shop shelf or how long they were at Parts Unlimited or whatever distributor the shop orders from. Or, for that matter, how long they sat in the importer's warehouse once they were offloaded from an intermodal container after coming across the Pacific.

I've been doing this since 1987, including several stints in independent bike shops. I've only ever had one bad Dunlop tire, and it was a D402 Harley tire, 80/90/21 mounted on a VN800A Kawasaki.

I'm betting your Avon has a bad section of body cord or a kinked bead. We sent dozens of Avons back at the last shop I worked for, defective bead wires and or bad carcass lay up. I'll run a Speedmaster, but you couldn't pay me enough to run a Venom.

i've felt that front tire up like a... well nevermind, but it seems legit. no bumps, bulges, tears, nicks, waviness, or other deformations. bead looks seated all the way around too. have not checked the year date though - keep forgetting to write down the numbers.
my verdict for now is that there is "something" unkosher going on with one or both of the tires. although it feels like its coming from the front, i did have problems before with the rear being oversized. i hate to leave it at that with a potentially dangerous problem like this. i paid good money for those tires that have less than 3000 miles, and i'm poor so there's not way i'm gonna ditch them yet. i've really run out of things to look for on the bike  . any other suggestions are welcome.

just as a matter of interest, what type of front tire would one want to run with a Darksider rear tire? - seeing as how that type of tire is a harder rubber compound than most bike tires... just curious, ya know.