Last year had a raked triple tree put on my 03 Venture w/Champion Escort car, to get the easier steering. I've been told that the bike without the car will handle erratically, be unstable. I've also been told, and have read, that the raked triple tree will have no negative impact on steering the bike. Can anyone comment, offer thoughts, etc. Thanks.
Some bikes with raked trees are almost unmanageable without the sidecar and some will do OK.
The quickened steering will act like a sportbike at best and cause too much oversteer at worst.
I've ridden my FXDL rig with and without the sidecar and found it just takes a bit more awareness without the sidecar due to the quicker steering with the Side-Effects tree mods. The reduced trail also reduces the self centering effect of the longer trail stock trees.
Lonnie
Jake - 12/21/2009 5:36 PM
Last year had a raked triple tree put on my 03 Venture w/Champion Escort car, to get the easier steering. I've been told that the bike without the car will handle erratically, be unstable. I've also been told, and have read, that the raked triple tree will have no negative impact on steering the bike. Can anyone comment, offer thoughts, etc. Thanks.
Others will no doubt comment. As far as I know, reducing trail with modified triple trees will make steering easier on your sidecar rig as you mention.
The negative aspect would come when you use the bike as a solo machine. Then it could be somewhat erratic. I've heard some people say that there's no problem as a solo with modified trees and others say it is a problem. I know that Harley-Davidson recommends against modified trees for solo work, although they have nothing to say about them for sidecar use. They compromise by supplying a steering damper. That's what I have and it's fine for me. Harley-Davidson does provide modified triple trees and forks for their new trike machine but that's clearly a dedicated configuratoin.
If I were going to use modified trees, it would be on a dedicated machine since I won't do anything to change the handling on my Harley-Davidson Ultra for solo work which is truly excellent.
There will be other comments now. To be clear, I have nothing against modified trees. I just can't use them since I remove my sidecar from time to time. .
