Suspension Experts...tech question.

You need a real steering stabilizer if you are doing 5th gear tapped across the desert.

That's because it was stiffer. Now that it's softer, you need a stabilizer if you are doing 5th gear tapped in the desert. In the mean time, drop the forks 5mm, crank in the compression clickers on the forks, and/or lower the rear sag.

Listen to CamP, he nailed it.

drop the forks all the way and increase rear sag a bit. head angle too steep

Call your revalve company and explain the problem to them. Why would you start cranking on the clickers when they gave you a good setting from their company? Before you call them, measure your sag, static sag, and fork height. Tell them these numbers as your baseline and see what suggestions they have.

My guess is you WILL need a steering stabilizer.

Are you running offset triple clamps? The more offset you are running is going to cause a shorter wheelbase and a steeper head angle which will cause twitch. How high are your running your forks in the clamps? Did you get the front wheel axle centered in the pinch tube? Did you torque the suspension hardware to the proper specs? When's the last time you checked the torque on your steering stem nut?

Wear diapers.

As has already been mentioned, drop the forks in the clamps and if that doesn't work start chopping the sag. You've got too much weight on your front wheel.

Agree ^^
don't change your new settings if your happy with them, except for the headshake problem,

dropping the fork tubes down first would be where I would start.

definitely call your suspension guy and ask him what to do, he should have the best idea since he knows the settings. sounds like you just need to make sure your sag is set properly for that setup.

For as obvious as this may seem, it needs to be said that headshake is a vibration. It’s a matter or function of the bike being unstable.

The steering assembly is caught in the middle of the forward momentum of the chassis and the impacts or hits or blows that are being delivered into the front wheel. When the damping mechanisms of the fork are overwhelmed, the leftover energy turns into a vibration. Simple as that.

So the bike is clearly unstable at faster speeds, and the problem will become worse as the forward speed becomes greater and/or as the bumps become sharper or larger or closer together.

So here’s what you can do to create more stability or cure the problem.

Lower the fork tubes in the clamps (raise the front of the bike).

Lower the rear of the bike (more sag)

Increase fork rake, (chassis mod).

Increase tire pressure.

Run a larger diameter front tire.

Run stiffer fork springs.

Increase compression damping.

Decrease rebound damping.

Run a steering stabilizer.

Shim or replace the bushings in the forks.

Slow down or stay home.


Each of these has some merit and each is technically an answer or a solution…some are just better than others. However, each of them comes with some compromise…so then you just need to figure out what is best based on what the consequences are.

What I can tell you is that a steering damper is not really meant to resolve head-shake. They are just meant to dampen a single or isolated blow that wants to crank over the steering assembly, (rip the bars from your hands)…such as hitting one big rock, off centered. Your bike should never have headshake with or without a steering stabilizer. If you do attempt to resolve headshake with a steering damper all you are doing is patching the problem and not really fixing the underlying issue(s).

And I don’t mind the solution of shifting the chassis about to add some stability, but this often means throwing things off in some way that will affect proper chassis balance for things like jumping or corners. That is, unless you are creating a machine that is dedicated to doing nothing but running in a straight line…such as drag bike. So in some ways, shifting the balance of the chassis is also a patch to an underlying problem or cause.

With that, it then comes down to damping. That is, there is hydraulic damping in the fork that does two things: one it converts the incoming kinetic energy into heat, (compression damping) and it also controls the rate at which the suspension recycles, (aka, rebound). Springs, by the way, have zero conversion, which is why you can often blow through and bottom out a bike even when equipped with super stiff springs.

So…the goal with compression damping is to have just enough damping as to not over or under-stroke the fork. In other words, when you hit a 3 inch tall rock, you don’t want the suspension moving only one inch, or moving six inches. This would be the case with a suspension being too stiff or too soft, respectively.

So..with just the right amount of compression damping, the next culprit is rebound…which to be honest with you, is often the number one cause of head-shake. That is, there is too much rebound. More of an issue with KYB based suspensions than SHOWA, as each company had different philosophies as to how much was needed. Long story. And most suspension tuners often ignore necessary modifications to the fork rebound for lack of not really knowing what to do or not understanding how vital this is for proper handling.

Here’s the issue.

When you hit a bump, the fork compresses and the wheel is effectively moving up and back. For a brief moment, it travels back in the opposite direction that the chassis is moving. It still is moving forward but not as fast as the chassis is.

When a fork rebounds, the wheel is then moving forward at a given speed in addition to the speed of the chassis. When you strike a second bump during the recycle, the fork then has to deal with the forward speed of the chassis in addition to the forward speed of the wheel. This causes a type of head-on collision (a double whammy) in which you have more energy to now absorb than what you would have if the wheel had already been fully recovered before the bump was hit. Sort of like knocking someone off balance and before they regain their balance, you hit them again. This is where the wobble comes from. This is also why you'll see some bikes lose a lot of speed and fall over as they near the end of a long whoop section. The fork just can't take the hits (one) and recover fast enough (two).

Obviously, if the fork was over-stroking on the compression cycle it will take longer to recover, so you can see the need to know what you’re dealing with.

With that, a stiffer spring has some merit because it allows for more compression stability and allows for faster rebound. By the way, in the comparison of running a softer spring with radically reduced rebound verses that of running a stiffer spring, the stiffer spring will always produce a fork that will recycle faster. In sports such as supercross and very fast desert racing, (and road racing) stiffer than normal fork springs are essential.

By the way, I should also add that when you turn out the rebound adjustor screw (speeding up the rebound rate) you also reduce compression damping. So...if you come out 2 to 4 clicks on rebound, go in 1 to 2 clicks on compression. That's a very general reference but certainly not a precise ratio.

Also, I should have added somewhere that having the front end kicked out from underneath you is not headshake. Headshake is a continued cycle that often doesn't go away until your change you speed or get the front wheel off the ground.

AND (I keep on thinking about more stuff) you'll also know when you have too much rebound in a fork when it feels like someone is slapping you on the upper back as you ride. You get hammered into the bars, as if the fork is stiff....but often it's not. This is what packing feels like when you don't actually know the fork is packing.

Hope this helps.