Portland Motorcycles

[Tallyho]

I developed a front end shimmy about half way to Washington state last week. It appeared there was some cupping on front BT020R that had about 8K miles on it at the time. It would smooth out somewhat above 45mph on the straight away but was increasingly squirrely at slow speeds and especially in curves. After nursing it along another 400 miles, I finally got into Portland Motorcycles first thing on a Tuesday morning after calling them the day before. They replaced the tire and discovered the shimmy continued. Turned out I had a case separation on the rear BT020R which only had about 5K miles on it. Apparently, it could have blown at any time. They said they hadn't seen anything like it and it appeared to be a factory defect. Portland didn't have a new rear BT available so they called three other shops in town. Nothing doing so I got a new set of 880s. The folks at Portland were friendly, knowledgable, and very concerned for safety. They put me first in line, set other jobs aside, gave me 20% off the tires, and only charged me $35 for all the labor! Since I was in Oregon I missed out on paying sales tax too. We were there about three hours in their comfortable and interesting surroundings as they are both a Triumph and Suzuki dealership as well. Sure they had the new R1200S to sit on but I could really get attached to that red and chrome Rocket III.

[AlaskaFish]

Glad Jeremy and the gang were able to fix things for you Bob! I can tell you that it probably would have been a different story altogether a couple of years back. I believe they really have improved up here and we are happy for it!

John

[Ted Shred]

I developed a front end shimmy about half way to Washington state last week. It appeared there was some cupping on front BT020R that had about 8K miles on it at the time. It would smooth out somewhat above 45mph on the straight away but was increasingly squirrely at slow speeds and especially in curves. After nursing it along another 400 miles, I finally got into Portland Motorcycles first thing on a Tuesday morning after calling them the day before. They replaced the tire and discovered the shimmy continued. Turned out I had a case separation on the rear BT020R which only had about 5K miles on it. Apparently, it could have blown at any time. They said they hadn't seen anything like it and it appeared to be a factory defect. Portland didn't have a new rear BT available so they called three other shops in town. Nothing doing so I got a new set of 880s. The folks at Portland were friendly, knowledgable, and very concerned for safety. They put me first in line, set other jobs aside, gave me 20% off the tires, and only charged me $35 for all the labor! Since I was in Oregon I missed out on paying sales tax too. We were there about three hours in their comfortable and interesting surroundings as they are both a Triumph and Suzuki dealership as well. Sure they had the new R1200S to sit on but I could really get attached to that red and chrome Rocket III.

I'm no tire expert but it sure looks like that tire was rubbing on the under side of your bike. If you were two up loaded for a trip seems like the suspension could be bottumed and and the tire rubbing...