Forks and stability

[Randolph Peters]

Hey guys
Reading the mails about the fork brace made me want to share this with y'all.
I never would have imagined how much fork efficiency affected general steering accuracy.
Earlier this year, I think, I was inquiring about the correlation between bike weight and susceptibility to cross winds. I was seriously contemplating pauperizing myself and flirting with divorce to invest in a new bike because the West Texas (where I now work) crosswinds were making rides, even daily commutes, real hazards because the ZZR1200 would sway all over the place once the wind picked up.
Well, it turns out that the forks were the problem. They were leaking, I knew but the biked tracked normally in calm situations and my cornering, admittedly on the conservative side, didn't seem to be affected.
Once the semester ended I took the bike down to my workshop in New Orleans and rebuilt the forks.
Now I'm back in San Angelo for the new semester and it is amazing. The bike tracks on a straight line even in the heaviest cross winds; at least those as strong as I encountered during the spring.
It's also amazing how much I have become re-enamoured of my ZZR. Next rebuild will be via Race Tech or other such package.
Hope this info could be of use to other owners of "old" bikes.
Randy from New Orleans.