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until I watched a few videos with them in them.

I never knew your bike wobbled around so much in a tankslapper. I thought what happend was you hit the brakes too hard and slapped your tank with your knees/body.


So the obvious question from a noob rider: How do you get out of a tank slapper?


My guess would be the same way you get out of a spin in a car (minus the brake), go with the tank slap (where the bike wants to go) and try to get out of it that way.

A little bit of gas and look at the horizon.

Shiv wrote:

So the obvious question from a noob rider: How do you get out of a tank slapper?

Throttle, man Throttle!

Tankslappers or headshake can be caused by either hard acceleration or hard braking, depending on the bike and the road conditions..... if your bike is prone to it, you'll soon know which one it is.

You will never 'compensate' for the bar's movement, in fact if you try, you will make it worse. Loosen your deathgrip(cause you will have one) and let the bike straighten itself out.

If your bike shakes on brakes, usually backing off the binders a bit will help, but your probably on the brakes that hard for a reason, so less brake might not be an option.

If it wobbles on the throttle, most of the time your best bet it to keep it on and ride it out..... grip the tank with your knees, relax your grip on the bars and enjoy the ride. Most likely to happen when tearing out of a corner and the front end is light from hard acceleration.

I've had bikes that will calm down if you back off the throttle during headshake, but I've had more bikes that shake harder if you close the throttle.....

And of course, none of this is really a problem until your experienced enough to be nailing corner exits that hard. By then, you should be skilled enough for it to be an experience, not an incident.

So is that why you see a lot of tankslappers after wheelies and what not? They're pinning the throttle to get the revs up and keep the front end light and thus the bike oscillates and then when they set it down tehy're in a tankslapper?


Cause I've seen it in racing videos (coming out of a corner like you said) and in 'watch this idiot crash' videos and most of the time, it involves a wheelie.

When in doubt, gas it...

SuperRookie wrote:When in doubt, gas it...

Are you talking about throttle action or what you want to do to squids on gixxers... ???

I find dirtbikes more apt to shake hard on heavy braking than streetbikes, but my old RD's would do it something fierce if there was any kind of rippleing in the pavement. I always tend to subconciously expect it more on braking over accel, too...... but I've had both.

Bikes with more sporty(steep) head angles seem more prone to shaking on hard accel. Wheel misalignment due to cornering combined with pavement irregularities and a light front wheel all seem to gang up and induce a wobble in 'twitchy' bikes. But I've even managed to make my old FJ wobble a bit in some more aggressive corners, and I wasn't really pushing it that much..... I'm hopeing my new front tire solves that.

Loose head bearings can definately lead to funny front end action. Not only headshake, but wheel chatter in corners, clunks and rattles anytime and a general 'ratty' feeling to an otherwise solid bike. Tight head or notchy bearings can be a PIA too, making it hard to impossible to maintain a straight line and a wandering bike. It's possible tight bearings could lead to wobble too, but I've never experimented with this..... not in a big hurry too, either....