A steering stabilizer (damper) is a system that suspense side to side movement of your motorcycle’s front end, the same as shock and fork control your wheel’s vertical movement. The stabilizer is a significant component of your motorcycle controlling system, especially on a higher speed that can develop on highways or race tracks and cornering.
Since we can see that your motorcycle steering stabilizers (damper) are a part of your steering system that can significantly improve your handling and increase your safety factor, you should know how your steering stabilizers work?
So how do steering stabilizers (dampers) work? A steering stabilizer (damper) is a suspension device that stabilizes your motorcycle trajectory when a motorcycle hits bumps on a road or off-road terrain. It increases your safety and riding comfort, especially at higher speeds, and lowers rider fatigue by reducing vibrations intensity.
If you want to know more about your stabilizers, you can learn everything you need to know further in this article.
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How Do Steering Stabilizers Work?
Steering stabilizers work in principle identical to a motorcycle’s front forks. The stabilizer sends the amount of shock needed through the handlebars to your hands, and this is done by internal circuitry and hydraulic valving.
A connecting point on your frame which shifts this violent movement to the frame allows a rider to stay in control of his bike and helps the rider to lower fatigue because he doesn’t need to use so much energy for controlling his bike through the handlebars like he would suppose to if there were no steering stabilizer.
Motorcycle front forks were made to handle vertical impacts that happen during rides. The steering stabilizer is created as a device that helps in reducing lateral movements during rides, especially more demanding ones.
A stabilizer contains hydraulic fluid that is transferred between controlled chambers, and that way, it softens the impact forces that develop during rides. These units are mostly called stabilizers or steering dampers.
Why Is It Good to Have Stabilizers?
Having motorcycle stabilizers is undoubtedly a beneficial element that can make your rides more comfortable and increase your safety factor to some level. But to tell you the truth, there are cases where you don’t need stabilizers, and they are not required in many situations.
If you are a local rider or enjoy long road trips, you don’t need to worry about the stabilizers and run to the first moto store to get them. There are, however, situations where riding with knobby or worn tires on long-distance touring will increase rider fatigue, and the steering stabilizer will come in handy. You may not notice, but you will constantly make tiny corrections on the steering because of these tire irregularities, and therefore you can feel tired after riding for a while.
There is no need for them if you like to cruise or have a cruiser, and if you don’t ride any sportbike, and to be completely honest with you, I don’t have steering suspensors on my Kawasaki Z750 either. However, it is not entirely a sportbike like Yamaha R1 or Kawasaki Ninja, but it can go pretty fast.
A stabilizer will be helpful when you ride on rough terrain like off-road or asphalt because it will reduce bar movements and, that way, decrease rider fatigue while at the same time increasing riding safety. Decreasing the rider’s need to concentrate so much on his handling stability will help him to focus more on road conditions and traffic.
Where Can I Get a Steering Stabilizer?
A steering stabilizer is a device specially made for restricting your lateral steering move, and because of that, you don’t want to install a device that will not work correctly, and that could decrease your safety. You can find a steering stabilizer in most motorcycle shops. You need to be careful if you buy stabilizers online, not to get cheap and bad imitations of famous brands like Öhlins or so, since it can do more damage than good not only to your handling and comfort but also to your, most importantly, handling and comfort safety.
Look for a stabilizer that enables you many circuits for controlling high and low-speed damping forces, and you shouldn’t have any problems with your handlebar stabilization. You can find a single damping control device, but this device is too soft at higher speeds or too hard to be used at lower speeds.
What Motorcycle Steering Stabilizers Are the Best?
Today’s market has many options you can choose from, and that’s why I will give you the stabilizers that I have personally tested (not on my bike, because like I said, I don’t have stabilizers on my Kawasaki, but I have ridden many motorcycles in my life, and I plan to ride many upcoming years) and that my friends and I find the best:
- Öhlins is a reliable company when it comes to motorcycle parts, and I find their products the highest quality.
- Scotts Performance Products is another very popular brand that I have tested, and I have some of my friends using their steering dampers. This is a company with a top-shelf steering damper.
- Hyperpro is another manufacturer of high-quality steering dampers. What they use in their dampers is what they refer to as “Reactive Safety Control“, which creates progressive damping that is undisturbed at lower speeds while effective at the same time dumping the hard hits when you need them.
So these are my favorites when it comes to steering dampers since these are the ones that I personally tried and my friends use them on their bikes.
What Types of Steering Stabilizers Can You Get?
You can find many different types of steering dampers on the market, from linear units placed on the bottom of the triple clamp to the radial dampers installed on the triple top clamp. All these steering dampers have one thing in common, and that is slowing down your steering. It doesn’t matter what type you choose; it will work properly. You can even find stabilizers that are electronically controlled, and their control is based on the speed of your motorcycle.
What Do Motorcycle Steering Dampers Do?
Almost every motorcycle rider likes a bike with easy steering, and with that being said, you may ask yourself why someone would want to slow down the turning speed of his front end?
The answer to that question lies in two simple words: Tank slapper.
Let’s say that you are riding and you hit a bump on the road, which causes your front tire to deflect, or another scenario can be that you decide to accelerate so hard that it raises your front tire. The moment when you get your tire back to the road at the specific angle, it will cause the front ends trail to whip the front wheel to the center, which can cause your handlebar to vibrate a little bit more, especially if you don’t have steering dampers installed on your bike, if you do have dampers the vibrations will still occur, but they will be felt considerably less.
You need to be careful in situations where you ride pretty fast because these are the cases when the front wheel can be turned far enough, and the fronts end self-centering movement inertia can throw your front wheel out of the center in the opposite rotation direction, and this will lead to a catastrophic chain reaction. Many things can get wrong, like in the worst case, you falling off your bike and taking into account that you are driving at high speeds can result in serious injuries.
CAUTION: This scenario can happen when you do a wheelie, so please be careful not to do it, especially if you don’t have any experience. I train stunt riding in my free time, so I have a lot of experience with it, and I never do it on the road with a lot of traffic, but on some abandoned roads or free parking lots.
If you want to learn more about Tank Slapper, click on this link that will lead you to Motorcyclist website, which has a lot of helpful information and outstanding content about motorcycles.
Steering stabilizers will help you interrupt and prevent oscillations that develop at high speeds while at the same time they will not interrupt slow-speed steering. Your stabilizer has very sensitive circuitry, just like a damper rod fork.
You won’t feel much resistance if you turn your handlebars slowly, but you will undoubtedly feel higher resistance if you somehow turn the handlebar quickly.
Here is an excellent video from Motorcyclist Magazine about motorcycle steering stabilizers (dampers):
What Motorcycles Use Steering Stabilizers (Dampers)?
Motorcycle steering stabilizers (dampers) are mainly used on stronger motorcycles with higher horsepower like 600 and 1000 CC sportbikes, and the reason is quite simple and logical. These bikes go very, very fast, and because of that, they are most sensitive to tank slappers and wobbles.
Handling these sportbikes is improved because of their steep steering geometry, power, and short wheelbases and all of these elements make a tank slapper more likely while also getting the bike more stable.
Motorcycle dampers can be found on many off-road bikes because these bikes are mostly ridden on uneven, bumpy terrain, which causes the front wheel to deflect.
Cruisers are a type of motorcycle that rarely have steering dampers because they are pretty heavy, and they have different fork angles than the sportbikes do.
Is It Worth Having Steering Stabilizers?
Having steering stabilizers (dampers) will increase handlebars’ stability and overall safety when it comes to higher speeds.
Depending on what type of rider you are, some riders have their dampers because they allow them smoother steering and better control over their motorcycle. In contrast, some riders want stabilizers because they keep their motorcycles stable at higher speeds. There is, of course, a style element that makes their motorcycles look nice, and these riders will have the stabilizers just to make their motorcycles look more stylish, although they don’t really need them.
Tip: I will give you a helpful tip regarding steering stabilizers. If you notice that your bike has handling problems, you may think you will solve them by getting a stabilizer. It may not be entirely accurate because you might have other issues, such as your tires being worn out, the wheel being out of alignment, or having problems with steering head bearings.
Final Thoughts
Motorcycle stability is a factor that affects your safety and comfort during rides, and as such, it needs to be on an adequate level. You need to ensure that you can get a steering stabilizer (damper) that will help you stabilize wheel traction, which is helpful, especially on higher speeds where you want to be as safe as possible.
With that being said, you can look for a stabilizer that will make your motorcycle more stable and allow you to enjoy every ride to its maximum.
We hope that this article has helped you better understand the motorcycle steering stabilizer and the function it has on your bike.