Steering dampers or steering stabilizers are designed and developed to stay away from tank slappers or speed wobble or death wobble in which the motorbike's front end wobbles violently out of control. Now a days, every motorbike used for motorsports have nearly 200 horsepower. Those power will become useless if we can't able to stop and control it. To squeeze out more power from the engine and for better handling, manufacturers have shortened the wheelbase of the motorbike with good aerodynamic profile. Though it is faster and agile around the tracks, it have some disadvantages too.
Generally in cruiser type of motorbikes, the rake angle will be higher. Rake angle refers to the angle of steering head from the frame. Some cruiser motorbikes have rake angle up to 45°. More rake angle results in more trail. This high rake angle and trail gives cruiser motorbike a good stability and maneuverability. In superbikes, the rake angle will be lesser compared to the cruiser type of motorbikes for example about 25°. Hence, the trail will be less making it agile and aggressive around tracks. But this setup also creates a effect of aggressive wobbling of motorbike's front end after exiting the corner or after landing from a wheelie.
This effects is known as self centering effect of the wheel. All of us have experienced this in our childhood while cycling. At moderate speed when we pedal continuously and take our hands off the handle bar, it'll remain straight until we start to decelerate. When the handle turns to one side, it automatically comes to a straight position and this is known as self centering effect. This also happens in motorbikes at the above mentioned situations. Nothing will happen if everything is in control. But, once it started to reach out of control, the wobbling will become more high resulting in loss of control.
Even though, experienced rider struggles to control the wobble at that situation. To neglect this completely and for the rider's safety, this steering dampers or stabilizers are invented. Simply saying, this steering damper acts as a suspension between the handlebar and frame of the vehicle. Steering damper uses hydraulic damping method offering much more resistance to the movement as the speed of the wobble increases. Almost all manufacturers use linear type hydraulic steering dampers which is adjustable.
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It consists of a oil chamber, piston inside it, oil and joints for connecting it into the frame and to the handlebar. When we turn the handlebar, the piston inside it will move back and forth thereby forcing the oil also to move. Holes designed inside the chamber allows the oil to flow in a controlled manner. When you turn your motorbike, the piston connected to it will also move forcing the oil to circulate. After turning when the handle tries to come to its original position, the oil helps it and resist the motion or wobble creating in it. Oil will be passed through the orifice present in it. Smaller section of orifice will be resulting in more dampening effect where the larger section in less dampening effect. A knob will be present in the damper assembly to allow the rider to vary the orifice section for controlling the dampening effect.
In a motorbike installed with a steering damper, the handlebar requires more input than the normal to turn from side to side due to the presence of oil which helps the rider to maintain control incase of any wobble at high speeds. Simply saying, front forks or suspension is designed to absorb the vertical impacts where the steering damper is used to control the lateral movement of the handlebar. The fluid flow helps in dampening the force when the vehicle is experiencing a aggressive wobble.
