Felt a good amount of headshake yesterday in 2nd gear....

How can a bike that is meant to fly have any headshake like this at all. I got the bike in second and decided to really let her rip. I think i hit like 12,000rpm when i guess the tire started to lift ever so slightly causing the front to shake quite a bit. I let off as soon as it happened cause it kind of caught me off guard. I guess it is time to get an ohlins damper asap. I still don't think this should happen on a brand new bike. WTF!!!

it happens to me every times i go hard with it. you get used to it. it doesn't mean you need a damper asap. it will surely help to recude the effect but it will still happen. a friend had a gsxr750 (come stock with a damper) and he had the same problem.
if it happens when you're leaned or coming down from a wheelie, then get a damper. unless that, relax your wrists, arms and shoulders... it will help to avoid the slight wobbling on the front tire.

Hey Lightwaves. This is not uncommon. There's nothing wrong with your bike. I've put 19K miles on my 01 R6 and have probably had a total of 10 major instances of headshake 4 of which turned into a tankslapper. One was at about 110 mph and literally almost threw me off the bike. It took 5 good pumps on the brake lever just to get my brakes working again. I had bruises on my knees and my wrists were sore just from the violence of the tank slapper. I can do 4th gear wheelies all day long, but my worst tankslappers come from hard accellerations going into and coming out of turns. I've thought about a damper, but instead have learned how to recover from the headshake in-turn preventing the tankslapper.

It has nothing to do with how new the bike is, I'm guessing the R6 is your first bike? The R6 has an extremely aggressive design, more so than most new sportbikes. You just need to keep learning and getting comfortable with the bike. The bike is not the problem, its you, so just relax and concentrate on learning.

By the way, if its a brand new bike, is that how you're breaking it in?

Well if this is normal, then i guess i will have to live with it. I am still going to put on the dampner to keep it from possibly going into a bad tank slapper.

Silus2000, The bike has maybe 240 miles on it after today. I whip this baby up to 14,000rpm once and a while. It is not going to hurt the bike. In the factory as soon as the bike is built they rev it up to 15,000rpm for over a minute. Ask anyone who has broken in their motor real hard, some have over 20,000 miles and make more power now then they did before broken in w/o any different mods. Shit, whenever i build a motor for my mustang, i start it and run it for 20mins. Then on comes 12#'s of boost and after 50,000 miles, still perfect.

I wont get in it about that, we could argue forever about it.

Yeah, I reccommend getting a <!--EZCODE ITALIC START--> damper<!--EZCODE ITALIC END--> ;)


Off to Riding Tips with ya!!!

Yeah, that R6 has aggressive geometry. Thats what makes it a great handling bike. But with great handling and aggressive geometry you can get instability in other areas. One being hard on the gas and hitting some bumps while the front-end is light.

Headshake is okay as long as it doesn't develop into a tank slapper. You need to get used to it as it is the behavior of the R6. Now I'd put a damper on it as "insurance" though.

Don't have to spend a bundle on a Scotts. Some of the less expensive dampers will do the job.

I've been pretty lucky with my 6 so far. Only one headshake that I was "ready" for somehow. I just put on some 70 profile M1's though, so I'm expecting the worst now. I'm going to hold off on the damper unless I get scared outta my wits.