What causes high speed shakes on a motorcycle?

Question

I was riding about 95m.p.h. on my motocycle and the back wheel started whipping back and forth. I leaned down to cut wind resistance and the bike straightened out. It seemed like the bike was controlled by the fork tube in the frame, like that was where the loss of control was emanating from. Are the high speed shakes caused from wind resistance or steering?

Answer 1

Welcome to the speed wobble. Most of the time with the newer bikes speed wobbles are caused by holding onto the handle bars too tight. If you want to test this theory try holding on to the bars very tightly on a bumpy road then try the same road with a relaxed grip. The fact that when you leaned down and the wobble subsided would indicate that you relaxed your grip.