STEERING DAMPERS

Picture this scene: you're on your favourite road, riding it like your very own TT course. You know every bump and ripple, every apex, every chamber. There are no surprises, and you're visualising each crest and braking point before it even comes into sight. Your bike feels like an extension of your body and your confidence has never been higher.
Swoop downhill, clip the apex, pick it up, and grab a massive handfull as the road opens up into a long, sweeping right-hander. Your added conviction means you hold a tighter line than ever before, scything toward the middle of the road. Then it happens, your bike bites back. Gassing it hard, glaring ahead, you barely notice the front-end's proximity to the center line. It's too late;the front wheel skims off the tarmac then clips a cat's eye. The bars snatch violently one way then the other. You're hanging on like a tortured chimp and your life's flashing before your eyes. Even if you do regain control, the brake pistons have been forced back and your stopping power has gone to hell. Basically, you're fucked! All you can do is wait for the pain. Yes, you've been tank-slapped.

Motorcycles are prone to two main modes of oscilation - wobble and weave. A tank-slapper is a high-frequency mode of wobble that causes violent steering oscilations. In other words, the steering snatches from side to side, similar to the caster shimmy that can occur in the front wheels of a supermarket shopping trolley.
Modern high-performance motorcycles have stiff frames and are most vulnerable to wobble at high speeds. They rely on steering dampers to stabilise high-speed wobble. The steering damper acts between the main frame and the steering assembly, and produces a torque that opposes the angular velocity of the steering assembly relative to the main frame. Even with a steering damper you are at risk from a tank-slapper. The flaw of steering dampers is that it reduces the risk of wobble but it rises the risk of weave. Because of this, only a narrow range of steering damping values are useable.

The BEST 10 steering dampers are :

1 - Arrow

2 - WP

3 - Matris M3
4 - FG Gubellini
5 - Öhlins

6 - GPR V4
7 - LSL Titan
8 - Toby
9 - Hyperpro RSC
10 - Sprint