Handling; cause, effect, symptoms

[dduelin]

Pan Weave - I doubt it - that was all cleared up after the court case. Modifications were made to the swing arm pivots bolts and the tightening procedure.

Nobody told the ST1300.

The ST1300 with a stock shock is so under sprung in the rear that heavy riders and all two up couples are riding on the bump stop over anything but glass smooth pavement. Advice to not crank up the preload is bollocks. With the soft spring all the preload available doesn't help the heavy rider get anywhere near decent sag. Bouncing off the bump stop at motorway speeds is very destabilizing. Fortunately the OP is only 150 lbs and doesn't carry any cargo so he has a shot at getting rear rider sag in the ball park of 45-50 mm and getting the shock to work in the middle of it's travel.

At the best a ST1300 exhibits light, quick steering due to the short wheelbase and quite steep rake angle. Honda designed the frame geometry to combine sport bike handling with touring capability. A rider coming from experience of more settled or stable bikes might be alarmed or frightened how an ST1300 feels at speed when it's just showing off its "happy feet."

 

[Ndfrc]

okay, first off, thank you all for the responses!
John, what a plethora of insider info, I loved it!
Will report back soon..
If this weave is harmless, well maybe that’s not the right word.. if all mitigation steps are taken into consideration, anything found that is not spec- corrected and we believe the bike is healthy, If then any weave experienced.. is the happy dance, well I could easily.. ummm.. Enjoy that bit.

Let me go mess with the girl and get some findings.

And when I said I didn’t want a bike that couldn’t keep up.. blah, blah, I didn’t mean I didn’t want my ST, quite the contrary, I love this bike, it has a home and I intend to make it a fast, capable hwy burner!

If anything, I need to get a nice 08 or better from initial reads about 07- and ECU remediation challenges.. whatever that means, but that another subject.