Bike pulls left

[zackattack784]

Coming home from work yesterday i realized i forgot to Velcro my one glove. I let go of the handlebars to Velcro it quick and woah, instant left turn. I went home and googled it and played with the rear wheel alignment this afternoon. No change no matter how extreme I changed the rear wheel. My buddy rode the bike as well and didnt think it was normal. Rear tire has over 80% tread on it front tire has maybe 1k miles on it. Bike has never been down and has 10k miles on it. The only thing i noticed was that my front wheel was missing a couple balancing weights. Could this be the cause? The bike doesnt shake, even at high speeds but I'm out of ideas. The next step would probably be take it to the dealer. Any help?

Edit: the pull isnt noticeable as far as I can tell during normal riding. It's only noticeable when you let go of the handlebars.


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[lawlberg]

Are you and your friend both partial amputee? Is your left side fatter than your right side?


One thing could be the frame:
Take a look at the part of the frame where the two halves join - right at the steering head (front of frame) - they're not supposed to be separated, even though bolts are there, if it looks like the two halves don't sit that well together, it may have been apart.

Another thing could be something physically pulling on your bars - my thought would be either the wiring harness, throttle or clutch cables - when you release the bars one side pulls, initiating the countersteer turning the bike left.

Maybe brake drag? This seems like more of a stretch though?

 

[FZ09Bandit]

Hmm. Unless one side of your front brake was dragging I don't see anything that could possibly do it. Maybe your just heavy handed.

Good suggestion from lawlberg on a cable or somethig, put the center stand up to take some pressure off the front and feel around.

 

[iSteve]

Check that the forks are not twisted in the triple clamps. Also loosen the pinch bolt on the bottom of the fork leg, pump the fork and retighten.

 

[motojoe122]

Could be how and where you sit on the bike, sometimes I end up a little more to one side and it pulls. Back track to the last thing you did to the bike, what was it?

 

[zackattack784]

Thanks for all the advice. Unfortunately nothing has helped . If I get some time this week I'm gonna take it to the shop and ask them to rebalance the front wheel since their weights fell off. If that doesn't fix it I guess I'll see if they can find out what the problem is.


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[lukaledoux]

My bike also pulls left slightly. I noticed this on a trip I did recently, and at first I thought it was the weight distribution of my gear on the bike. I'm not sure anymore that this is the issue and here's why:

At some point during the trip my bike fell over and the handlebars became misaligned with the front wheel. When this happened, I let go of the handlebars and the bike would really swing left. My guess was that it was because of my handguards. They create a lot of wind resistance and would try to straighten out the handlebars when i let go, except that this no longer corresponded with a straight front wheel, thus turning the bike.

When I got the alignment fixed (banged the wheel against a tree to re-align) the effect had been reduced a lot. The bars arent perfectly straight yet and the bike still heads left but very slowly. But I'm thinking either removing the handguards or getting the bars perfectly aligned will solve the issue completely.