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Weight and subsequent oversteer

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alaskier:
As per an earlier post I swapped my old K1300GT for a new (to me) 2022 K1600GT a few weeks ago. The new bike is absolutely fantastic except for its enormous weight and consequent oversteer. Do other K1600 riders have problems with their bike’s weight and if so how do they manage it, especially when riding under 10mph and/or manoeuvring tight spots. At the moment it is quite embarrassing turning right into my drive as I sometimes end up in my neighbour’s drive! I find that using the Road or even the Rain mode helps but it is still difficult to execute tight turns, especially with my wife on board. Gawd knows what it will be like in the summer when we tour Europe!!

Any help will be gratefully received.

Tony

Phmode:
Do you mean oversteer, where the front tightens the turn and/or the back appears to come round to bite you on the elbow?

Or do you mean understeer, where the front plows on and the bike makes a wider turn than you intended?

With a big, heavy bike I would have assumed the problem would be understeer but what do I know?

Heavy bikes plow on or understeer mostly because the rider doesn't lean the bike into the turn for fear of dropping it, especially at very low speed. Pulling out of T junctions is my nightmare, that and trying to turn into my drive which is an uphill hairpin turn right on a gravelly surface. The Hendon shuffle has nothing on me trying to get into my drive…

Matt:
Haha your drive entry/exit features in a lot of top tens I reckon :D

I think it was easiest on my GS, worst on my K, and somewhere in-between on the KTM.

Also yeah in pedantic mode, over/understeer is about losing traction and sliding aboot right. Are we talking about lack of leverage? Using Bri's example, those T junctions on a nice high, wide bar bike such as the GS or KTM are much easier to get right.

Phmode:
Not necessarily about losing traction. Oversteer on a road bike is not normally an issue. Race bikes are set up to allow the rear wheel to slide out on the throttle which has the effect of tightening the radius of a turn giving the feeling that the bike is over steering or steering more than your input at the bars would normally get you.

In the car world, rear-drive cars give more oversteer  whilst front-drive cars give more understeer, tending to plow on in a straight line when you turn the wheel.

Understeer is considered the more easy to control trait and is thought of as safer for the average Joe.

The ultimate oversteery car is something like a Porsche 911 with all the weight at the back and gobs of power meaning in the extreme the back does lose grip and swings out making the car head for hills.

On a bike, the turning effect at anything above, say 10-15mph is effected by counter steering the bars which makes the bike drop into the corner and go round it. This doesn't work at lower speeds so when you turn the bars there is no counter-steering (obviously, as you are turning the bars in the direction you want to slowly go) and the front end simply tries to go straight on (or that is what it feels like) if the bike is heavy or you are trying to turn in deep gravel.

alaskier:
Thank you both for your comments. I mean that the front ploughs on and the bike makes a far wider turn than I had intended and this only happens at low speeds, probably less than 10mph. As you say, I worry terribly about dropping it, both for the expensive damage it will cause and also for picking it up again!

From what you say it sounds as though this is another little foible I shall have to get used to but I would be interested to hear how other K16 owners deal with it

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