New fron tire cured head shake.

[kawabeemer]

I have had head shake at 25-35 mph on my Roadstar/Champion bike w/ezsteer since new. With 22k on my second Dunlop, I installed a Michelin Commander rear tire on the front. The head shake has disappeared.
The Michelin sidewalls seem to be a lot stiffer than the Dunlop rear I had been running.
I thought this bit of info might help someone with the same issue.

 

[skuuter]

I have had head shake at 25-35 mph on my Roadstar/Champion bike w/ezsteer since new. With 22k on my second Dunlop, I installed a Michelin Commander rear tire on the front. The head shake has disappeared.
The Michelin sidewalls seem to be a lot stiffer than the Dunlop rear I had been running.
I thought this bit of info might help someone with the same issue.

Always Good to know.....THANKS for the tip on yet another good "Rear on Front" Conversion.....ThumbUp

 

[bongobobny]

Very interesting! What Dunlop were you using? I'm on my second year with a rear Dunlop E-3 with no problems as of yet. I chose the E-3 due to the best tread wear number...

 

[kawabeemer]

I think it was a d404 rear in the appropriate size for the front.

 

[John Luciano]

Radial vers Bias ply ... The bias ply is a stiffer wall tire....

 

[87Trike1200]

This is interesting. I have the opposite problem. I had a Dunlap E-3 ("regular" front tire) which remained on the bike when converted from 2 to 3 wheels. It performed perfectly. Recently, with the tread down a little, I thought I'd treat myself to a new Bridgestone BT-45 (rear, sized for front). Almost immediately I encountered a shimmy in the 55-70 speed range. It doesn't do it all the time, it seems if I hit a slight bump, or have a cross wind condition, something "sets it off". Sometimes it's slight and brief - sometimes severe enough to require a quick slowdown to stop the shimmy. Since the new tire is the only thing that changed and it never did it before, I was blaming the tire, but was wondering if I was nuts. Anyway, this just started in the last week or so since I changed the tire.

Maybe I should have stuck with the "old" E-3 while it still had some life in it.

I'll now have to research a source for one of "your" Michelin Commanders or similar. Anyone have other suggestions? The bike is a GL1500 with a "superbrace" (had for years). I thought the BT-45 was one of the "top shelf" brands, but maybe not for my situation(?).

 

[Pegasus1300]

I have had both the Michelin, BT 45 and E3 on the front of my trike and find I prefer the BT 45.For me it is smoother riding and bites deeper into the corners. I ride a 90 Goldwing 1500 trike.
The Michelin is available at the Motorcycle Superstore. I used the Pilot Active. I was very happy with it but due to a faulty valve stem it was run very low on air for a lot of miles so I replace it with the BT 45.I have not had any shimmy problems with either of the 3 tires, which leads me to suspect maybe there is something wrong that you didn't know about before. Air pressure, installation, balance, steering head bearings.