Why my bike was handling strangely on Saturday

[Mr B]

On Saturdays rideout...East meets West. My Road King was doing some strange things on right hand bends. It was enough for some of the riders behind me to notice. I was getting understeer and then a lot of sudden oversteer....always on a right hander....never on a left hander. I learned to compensate for this as much as I could, but allsorts of things were going through my mind as I was riding...trying to imagine what it could be.
A few riders suggested the rear shocks, tyres, engine mounts, frame alignment....I welcomed any suggestions as to what it could be. I even questioned my own riding skills at one point.

Foby was riding behind me a lot of the time and he was watching my bike wobbling as I rounded right hand bends. Steve on his Electra Glide was behind him, and he even took the same path as me on purpose, and didn't have a problem. I was beginning to think I was a victim of this famous Road King wobble that I've read about.

I got home and forgot about it until Sunday morning, then decided to try and find out if I could what was causing this.
I checked the tyres right over, they are both new Venoms, but that don't always mean a thing...I could have got a bad one. I pumped the rear shocks right up and let the pressure go to see if any oil came out of the valve, that would have indicated a ruptured seal and given me uneven damping. Back wheel was inline ok, no busted spokes of loose ones, so far nothing wrong. I worked along the bike looking at everything, all was ok.

I decided to check the head bearings and do the swing back test. That is when I suddenly found the answer to my problem, and I felt a complete prat. I had fitted the +6" clutch cable wrongly when I fitted my ape hangers.

The cable goes through a clamp under an acorn nut on the left hand side of the spot lamp mounting. As I turned right, the cable was jamming against the lower nut, then riding over it, this was giving me the impression of understeer then suddenly oversteer when everything went free again. I wouldn't have noticed it at low speed because it seemed to slide over the nut ok, but at higher speeds, and only turning the bars slightly was enough to momentarily jam my right hand steering.

A cable tie to hold the clutch cable in the right position half way down the front downtube fixed the problem straight away. A road test proved this.

So...Anglia people, that is why I was riding strangely on Saturday....not my crap riding standards, but a bit of bad maintenance on my part.

Brian.

[Foby]

Brian - If only everything in life was as easy to fix as your bike