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Old 09-05-20, 11:24 AM
  #47  
blakcloud
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Originally Posted by JohnJ80
Not sure I agree with that. It’s a classical mechanical resonance or under damped issue where some repetitive frequency at the right frequency sets up the wobble. Depending on what’s wobbling - top tube, fork, chain stay etc... you need to damp that member. That’s why often clamping the top tube with your knees stops the wobbling because you’re changing the frequency that that member resonants at which happens to be related to the speed you’re traveling (or, more accurately, to the wavelength of the frequency). That’s also why speeding up/slowing down can help or moving your weight placement. The problem with braking is that it can increase the amplitude of the oscillations until you slow down enough to get out of the resonant/under damped frequency range. The problem with speeding up is that you eventually need to pass through that slower resonant frequency range at some point. So it’s a tricky problem and needs to be solved because if you hit it just right the amplitude of the oscillation can increase rapidly to the point of it being uncontrollable. “Uncontrollable” means to the point it’s not possible to control regardless of your bike handling skills.

So one does need to try and find the cause of the wobbling. All the advice on checking hubs, head sets, etc... are valid. And often the solutions are counterintuitive because they are frequency/wavelength related more than anything else.

That said, it’s possible to create a frame out of pretty much any material that hits resonance. I have a stainless steel frame that I’ve never seen it wobble. I used it for light touring because my other bike wasn’t available at the time, with a light load of less than 20lbs extra on the frame, I would get a pretty severe wobble at around 14-15mph. Took the weight off and it was fine and has never been an issue since. That’s why any frame can wobble under the right conditions.
Wow good stuff here, thanks for posting this. In my case the more I braked, the harder the bike was to handle. It just kept getting worse until I crashed. At the time of the incident I just wanted to stop the bike so I could re-group, that was my focus.

Two factors that may have influenced what happened to me was the downhill went around a corner and I went straight into a head wind which was about 20-30 km/h and the second was just before the wobble I hit some really rough pavement which may have unsettled the bike. One of the problems with trying to overcome the possibility of the next speed wobble is my inability to control the dynamic risk factors. There will always be the static risk because the bike is the bike.
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