I've complained about my bike being an "ass hammer" a few times. The bike shakes so violently that it regularly sheds parts. Last week I was out riding and someone pointed out to me that my license plate was about to fall off. I removed the plate and continued my ride - and I have to admit that I was a little pissed off about parts always getting lose on my bike. Being a little angry I got on the throttle kind of hard. As I was shifting through 2nd, 3rd and 4th I was noting how smooth the bike felt. Cruising in 5th at 60 mph the bike was shaking like a paint shaker. And that's when it hit me, my rear tire was way out of balance.

I didn't have a wheel lacing/balance stand until just a few months ago. When I originally built the bike two years ago I dropped the wheel off to be balanced at a shop near work (not the shop I usually use near home) after I spooned the tires on. I just assumed they did a good job.

Well today I pulled the rear wheel and put it on my stand. The wheel wasn't anywhere close to being in balance. The 5g weight wasn't even installed in light area, it was off by 90 degrees. So I removed the weight and started to properly balance the wheel. It took 35g about 160 degrees from the stem to get the wheel correctly balanced. In fact, I think it could take another 5g but I ran out of weights.

With everything back together I took it out for a test ride. It wasn't the night and day difference I was hoping for, but it's much smoother then before. I'm quite certain that my bike is done shedding parts.

35-40g seems like a lot of weight, but that's what it needed. I need to get some more weights and check the front wheel. If the same tech did the balancing I'm sure that there's room for improvement on that wheel too.

I'd go back and have a chat with the shop supr.
They need to know.

I am a firm believer in ceramic balancing beads. Get it as close as you can then add 2.5 oz. of beads in the rear and 1.5 oz. in the front and they will smooth things out. I get more even tire wear with them also.

The MAC exhaust is a little on the loud side but not objectionally so.

hotrod wrote on 05/21/17 at 08:50:29:


Me neither.....think of how small that wrench is that the put in the tool kit - even with the little extension they provide it isn't much of a wrench.  In the garage I use a large wrench and give it a firm one handed tug!

OCD on my part. If the manufacturer provides a torque spec, then I must tighten to said spec. Otherwise I can't sleep 😃

Truthfully, in my younger days I just tightened everything to the feel good range. I dealt with a lot of nuts and bolts that were difficult to remove. A good friend's dad that was a mechanic, who always helped me removed over-tightened nuts, told me to always use a torque wrench. He was right because I never have to deal with a difficult to remove fastener.