putting a front tire back on the bike..

[Johnny K]

The tire is balanced. A shop balanced it by putting it on a cylinder and wherever the weight was off, they put a weight on the wheel. I thought the balance would take place in a car type balancer. How do I know if the tire is beaded?

[chef1366]

There is no way they balanced the tire if it wasn't beaded.
You can check the bead by checking the line on the tire that runs right next to the rim. It should be even the whole way around and not disappear into the rim.

Tighten the steering head. It's the big bolt between where the handle bars clamp down.

[Don-lo]

Too much or too little air pressure in the forks can also cause that head shake. Overtightening the steering head is not good either. With the bike on the centerstand, the forks should move easily from side to side. Have you greased the steering bearings lately?

[Johnny K]

I'll try to tighten the steering head bolt. I haven't had to touch that since I bought the bike 3 years ago because there were no signs of anything. Before this I had a Dunlop 110/90/19 with a tiny tiny dent in the rim. I didn't have any wobble like I'm having now. I only bought a new tire and a nice used rim is because the dent was bugging me and the tire was 5 years old. So I bought a nice used front rim with no scratches or dents and put a new pirelli sport demon 100/90/19. I changed the forks from air to progressive springs and new seals about 2 years ago. I haven't done anything to the steering head bearings because there was never anything wrong with them. I'll try to just tighten them down and see if it works.

[sachsaca]

A point of thought for you experienced riders. Could it be that the new tire technology has something to do with this wobble, sounds like head shake he's describing and could that be a tread pattern design that is causing this?????? Or could more grip be putting more strain on the head bearings??

[Johnny K]

I couldn't tighten the steering stem bolt so it has been tight. I did take my new wheel off and put my rotors back on my old tire and rim and put it all together and went for a ride. All these years I never knew it had a wobble at 50-45mph. I couldn't really notice it because the old tire is a dunlop 110/90/19 - a bigger and thicker tire. My new tire is a pirelli 100/90/19 - a much thinner one compared to my old tire. So when I rode today it wobbled but not as much. Then sometimes it would wobble hard. But if I had my hands on the handlebars going 45-50mph, I couldn't tell there is a wobble. So new steering stem bearings???