Chilly's Extended Sig File

RMH History Lesson - 108 MPH:

As a newby to RMH, I wondered about ominous warnings to avoid going "108mph, fully loaded, uphill in the rain." Seems a few years back, a gent by the name of Lee Fisk posted to HeD that he had experienced a tank slapper whilst going over 105 mph. Those who knew him couldn't imagine him ever pushing his bike that hard and called bullshit on just about every aspect of his story. In the end, Lee admitted as to how the "Tank Slapper" was more of a wobble ... Of course, as legends often do, his story morphed into "108mph, two-up, fully loaded, going uphill, in the rain", and is now RMH lore.

For the sake of preserving history, here's the original HeD post:

Date: Mon, 1 May 2000 09:06:50 EDT
Subject: 107 MPH Tank Slapper
From: HogWldF...@cs.com

Hello All,

My ways of excess may finally have caught up with me. After two years of dicking with my bike I finally have created a bit of a monster. I rode back from Laughlin yesterday and on the way up a hill enroute towards Phoenix I encountered a FLHTCUI twinkie riding two-up who wanted to engage in a roll-on race at 80 mph. Given his obvious weight disadvantage he quickly was a fair ways behind me.

Since I was already at speed I decided to see how fast I could get my Evo FLTR going. Shortly the scoot started into a tank slapper. I stupidly reached for the front brake which accentuated the problem. I looked down at the speedo kind of wondering if this was going to be my last vision of life (not that it would be a bad last vision). I realized that I was holding the front brake and thought, "over 105...let up on the brake...roll off on the throttle"; the tank slapper subsided without even so much as a stain in my trousers.

This was the first time I've had the scoot over 102. I believe that with the exhaust and intake mods I've made recently I now have an engine which will go beyond the stock bikes limitations. Of course I've got to go back over wheel alignment (I just added two new tires, Venom X with a 140 tire in the rear); it's possible that the alignment was not done correctly to compensate for the wider rear tire. I need to check. The bike has been meticulously maintained; the front and rear shock were both at 15 PSIG. My thinking is that if
all the setup pans out then it's time to look at steering dampers, fork braces and more aggressive suspension. This would be easy with the possible exception of this being a bagger. Anyone got any recommendations for a solution?

-Lee
Tucson

Other suporting documentation:
http://groups.google.com/group/rec.motorcycles.harley/
search?hl=en&group=rec.motorcycles.harley&q=lee+fisk+
108+mph+fully+loaded (Watch the word wrap)