How To Solve Speed Wobble On Your Bike | GCN's Road Cycling Tips

Cycling Speed Wobble can be a scary thing, here's our tips to solve it should it happen to you.

It's easy to panic if you encounter the dreaded Speed Wobble whilst cycling.

Our presenters give you their top tips for coping with the awkward and frankly terrifying moment that your bike starts shaking.

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Music
Per Ljungqvist, Donnie Dragon - Smooth

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[ChaunceyPhilips]

This video still has good info after so many years!
Yesterday I got the death wobbles while passing a car and another cyclist on a mountain descent going 50+ mph. This was when another car appeared around a curve in the oncoming lane (1/4-mile ahead), so I started braking to drop back behind the car I was passing, but my handlebars started wobbling violently back and forth. I was mentally preparing to wreck since it felt totally unrecoverable, but I saw that the oncoming driver was slowing (he saw me) and that I could complete the pass, so I released the brakes, shifted one hand at a time to the handlebar hoods, and the wobbles stopped. From the hoods I was able to start braking again without the wobbles restarting. I'm pretty sure that both drivers and the other cyclist saw how screwed I appeared during that wobbling moment, though the driver that I passed didn't say anything when he turned past me at a red light at the bottom of the mountain 10 minutes later.

This was probably the closest I've come to dying on a ride (again, this was 50+ mph while potentially between cars on a steep downhill), and I've had a couple of bad wipeouts in the mountains over the years and once (around 2015) even took a race line around a totally blind curve (if there had been a car, that would have been it). It's a good reminder to not get too comfortable and to re-learn the basics.

There's some contradictory information in the comments, so I'll just say a few details that seem consistent across comment experiences and some things I picked up from others in these circles (might be helpful for others):
-- Motorcyclists (as opposed to we cyclists here) say that putting your weight forward, having a relaxed grip on the bars, and only using the rear brakes works to reduce wobbles. One comment here suggests that using the front brakes is preferable to get weight transfer to the front wheel, and while that does apply during normal descent-braking, this motorcyclist logic and the popular cycling logic seems to say that you should completely ignore that particular comment and instead you should favor the rear brake.
-- For sure, though, shifting weight forward, keeping your weight in the feet instead of the seat, and pinching the top tube/frame with a/the knee(s) is consistent across motorcycles and cyclists.
-- Mechanically, people recommend servicing the headset, since there could be issues with bearings or looseness. Other possible issues are wheel-truing and brake-pad and rim contact imperfections (uneven brake-pad contact can initiate wobbles). User "testpilot" in the RoadBikeReview forums offers a longer list of potential mechanical reasons, but headset issues and brake-contact points seem to be the top culprits.
-- most people suggest going into the drop-handlebars to stabilize, whereas I went into the hoods. This seems dependent on rider position and bar types. My particular handlebar hoods give me better forward placement of weight than do my drops since my drops force me to adjust farther back in my seat... whereas most (especially newer) road bars allow better forward body-positioning in the drops. Evaluate this yourself to see which position is best for you rather than just accepting one or the other as "correct"; however you can get your weight shifted over your front wheel seems better.

I hope this helps someone!
I'll be getting my bike serviced before doing another high-speed descent, but knowing what I could have done in that moment to avoid this will make me feel a lot better going forward.

[JohnTye]

My experience with speed wobble really freaked me out as I was doing 50+ mph. I was in an extreme tucked position coasting (because I was past a comfortable cadence) going down a steep hill trying to hit my highest speed. I think I instinctively tuck my elbows and knees in to stay as aero as possible but this time my legs were just straight ahead. As the wobble started and quickly showed no sign of letting up I smashed my knees together basically pinching the top tube with my legs which straightened it out right away. I didn't raise my butt off the seat like they mentioned in the video but definitely pinching the top tube stopped the wobble and I then proceeded to pick up speed without issue. Since then I always consciously think of pinching my knees together and I've never experienced it again on that same bike or any others.

[OWC]

Have had speed wobble happen three times with one near fatal crash. What is happening is that the bike is becoming a big tuning fork. The best way to prevent this is to always press your knee against the top tube and put your weight on the pedals. So as a matter of practice I always do this whenever going downhill or coasting.

[toddholmes]

I have unwittingly found my personal cure for speed wobble: I avoid riding down big hills, so I never go fast enough to wobble. It fits rather nicely with my effort to avoid riding up big hills. 😀

[pinkypacho]

I have encounter this 3 times already with 3 different sets of wheels, same frame. It is a really scary feeling going at 45-60kph at the bike start shaking, the mind tells you to grab your handles hard because you feel they will go off wildly out of your hands and you also go far back in the bike trying to stop as fast as possible being gentle on the brakes. This has thrown all my confidence descending down the drain. I guess I have to build it up slowly again with the tips on your video, however it is hard to stay relaxed when the fear is breathing down your neck. For those who have not experience this before I hope you never do. Now I always get dropped int he descends which can be a bit demotivating. Thanks GCN for all the great videos packed wit h valuable information.

[Spearfisher]

Just a note that may affect speed wobble, but a tip that can affect how a rider can, or can't, ride with no hands: I bought a new road bike years ago that I found, despite the skills I thought I had, I never felt comfortable riding with no hands (which is an understatement - it was a forced focus to ride no-hands on it). Initially I thought it the geometry of the bike, or that the bike was just a hair smaller "for racing" or something. It being a new bike, of course I checked and re-set the headset and stack tightness. Within a few months of having my new bike, a thought occurred to me - what if something was wonky with either the headset, or the installation of the headset? It came with a threadless Shimano 105 headset - nothing surprising there, but should have been good to go for at least a year. So I invested and took a chance on a Chris King headset. I had a home-made press that I used for my mountain bike, but wanted to make double sure all things were done well, so I took the cups and frame to the bike shop (there at Penn State) to have them use their Park headset press, then I assembled the rest of it. I'm telling you, GCN, it changed the nature of the bike. The bike felt stable, solid, and I could ride with no hands for hours on end. I think it improved the overall stiffness of the front of the bike as well, as I have been clocked at over 50 MPH down hills that I was able to make the turns in without slowing. So... the moral is, I'm willing to bet a badly installed headset, or one that was over torqued and had a flattened bearing, or any other discrepancy, may add to a speed wobble.

[madiagajulio]

Thank you so much for making a video on this subject. I had one experience with this event, years ago, and I hope it is the last.I was descending at about 47 MPH, and it was horrible, I initially thought that I had a front tire puncture, but it was not.My entire bike was just vibrating and shaking.I literally thought, holy cow, I am going to crash!!My initial reaction was to slammed on the brakes.The whole event seemed to last for a life time, when in fact, it was a brief episode.I was just lucky, I did not really crashed.But, I was in "cold sweat and almost moved my bowels, " after the incident.This one incident of speed wobble or bike shimmy, affected my riding skills, specifically, my confidence in descending.The hills that I used to descend with confidence, now, I am very conservative and basically, hit the brakes and descend slow.But, thanks for a confidence boosting video.This, is the kind of video that sets GCN apart, from the other bicycling shows.GCN, best cycling show in the universe!!You guys really rock!!

[maxabes]

I've had a couple of wobbles on my own, another recommendation while going downhill is to keep pedaling. The times its happened to me is going on a steep downhill and there was some crosswind on one occasion. I also think its a rider related issue. I have two bike, pretty much identical frames and have experience wobbles on both bikes. Can't afford new bikes, so I try to be careful when going downhill. Also being aware is helpful, if you pay attention you can start feeling the oscillation to begin and therefore you can react before it gets bad. I've been fortunate and have been able to recover from "the wobbles"

[neilmdon]

I certainly did also request this several years ago and thanks for producing the video. I'm sure the "real" Neil Donahue does not have to worry about it (do downhill MTBs get the wobs??).

My initial and traumatic introduction to this was during a ride in Colorado in 2013, where I fell off at about 30 mph and marked all of the key contact points on my left-hand side (ankle, knee, hip badly, elbow, and head - concussed) only to have Strava announce to me afterwards that "you may have been in a moving vehicle" due to the 70 mph ambulance ride with my still running Garmin on my bike. The bicycle was a rented Specialized Roubaix, which may have had something to do with it. I had no idea what speed wobble was and I am pretty sure that I unweighted my front wheel and shifted well backwards because I thought that my steerer tube / headset had totally failed. I have pretty clear memory up to the point of impact but had to reconstruct the actual physics based on subsequent knowledge.

I later found a commentary written by an applied mathematician at Clarkson University named Erik Bollt, who I have subsequently come to know and even ridden with. He wrote in to a maintenance blog by Lennard Zinn


that this is one of many manifestations of a phenomenon known as a Hopf bifurcation. In formal terms it means that it is not technically an instability so much as a transition from a regime where the front wheel is happy steering in one direction, with a counter steering force (this is why bicycles work, basically, because if you veer one way the front wheel will turn in the other direction) to a state where the front wheel has two equilibrium points on either side of the desired line of travel and oscillates between them. The most common manifestation of it is when the front wheels of a shopping trolley chatter from side to side when you are pushing it. I've got several articles on the topic if you are interested in applied mathematical physics...

To me the most important thing is simply to know it exists and isn't a massive malfunction (my thought during my first episode). I have had a couple of other events subsequently, principally in crosswinds on steep descents, and applied the various methods of gripping the top tube with my knees, etc. I can't attest to their exact utility, but knowing I was dealing with a phenomenon and not a massive mechanical problem helped me work out of the trouble. I have also worked hard on my descending skills in general since then.

[rosscads]

I long ago heard speed wobble described as a matter of resonant vibration, and have found that an effective solution is damping vibration in the frame by squeezing the top tube with my knees.
I now routinely do this on any fast descent, where it has the added advantage of reducing frontal area and drag.

[raymondgreenlaw]

I've experienced a number of cases of speed wobble over the years. Some of the causes were the road surface (the road actually had narrow channels/grooves, as do many roads in Asia, where the paving is done in long lines in the direction of travel), loose headset, wheels that weren't true, and wheels that weren't properly tightened. In RAAM 2013 when I was descending toward Mexican Hat, Utah on a steep grade at high speed, my bike began shaking violently. Over a long stretch of road, I was able to slow the bike down without crashing. My crew who was following along behind me said they thought that I was going to die. One crew member screamed while in the car while watching me lose control of the bike. The wobbling is an oscillation akin to what happened to the Tacoma Narrows Bridge. Once the bike starts resonating violently, you can only hope to slow it down to avoid a crash. The entire bike is moving wildly from side-to-side and feels like it is going to break into pieces. My most-recent case of speed wobble was in the Swissman Extreme Ironman, where on the first big descent of the race my bike started shaking. There was a problem with my headset that I never quite got fixed during the race. I couldn't/wouldn't go over 30 mph on descents during the race after that experience. For other related topics please see The Hazards of Cycling in Thailand. For instance, the giant Asian hornet getting in your shirt also is known to cause speed wobble ... at any speed.

[mtnbkrpnk]

I wish I would have known how to prevent it last week before it sent me down with a broken clavicle! Now I know. Thanks!

[duncanmurdison]

wasn't something that ever crossed my mind.. now it has and ill be paranoid about it. thanks guys

[casilasgoaler]

I started cycling after like 10 years and on my first long trip out in some hilly roads (never cycled up and down slope ever), I was speeding up my descent in my bike, it was fast enough but I pedalled again trying to attain an ever faster speed, somewhere around 40-50 kmph, suddenly my cycle started to wobble uncontrollably and having never faced such a situation before, I almost... Good thing I had my hands on the handlebar, let it loose like you described and slowly applied the brakes. From that day I never rode fast ever again, life lesson. Thanks for this video, I am seeing it after it happened to me, but many bicyclists have no idea what it actually is until they face one. This video should help the masses.

[nelsonhibbert]

Experienced this many years ago and researched it quite thoroughly, I seem to recall there being a good article written by a guy called Jobst Brandt. One point I took away from it is that it is actually more likely to occur on a bike that is well set up and inline. The speed wobble can be put down to the fact that the gyroscopic force of the wheel (take a wheel out of the frame and spin it in your fingers and lean left and right to feel the "pull") is acting at right angles to the pivot of the head set. It seems to be a combination of rider and bike that is responsible for the cause. "Cures" including laying one leg against the top tube (or gripping between knees) and removing the mass about which the vibration moves around (taking weight of the saddle), keeping a relaxed grip, and continuing to pedal (as speed wobble tends to occur when freewheeling). The same phenomenon happens with motorbikes (aka "Tank slapping"), shopping trolley wheels and aircraft undercarriages (there are probably countless other situations). Mechanical solutions have been created to solve the problem ( a fluid reservoir with a paddle in the case of motorcycles). But for bicycles there seems to be little that has been done. I quit road racing as I no longer trusted bikes and couldn't seem to find a concrete answer to the problem, but maybe this did me a favour because I was shite anyway!

[jonathanfriesen]

I have been racing motorcycles for many years with a great deal of speed wobble experience, especially in the early days. I've also seen it on my trusty Cannondale Super Six Evo when the stearer bearing race broke, leaving my forks a little too loose. The way to get out of terminal wobble resulting in ejection in all cases is to gently squeeze the front break, which transfers weight forward to the forks. This will settle down the wobble so you can slow the bike to safer speeds. The proper fix is to tighten up your font end, whether it be a stearer preload adjustment or a bearing replacement.

[urgetodrive]

First time this happened, I had no idea what was going on and thought my life was about to end. Did the research, came up with all the advice you suggested and was ready next time it happened. Still doesn't change how frightening it is (esp. at 50+ mph!) but at least you have the knowledge to cope better and get things back under control. Now I just proactively do many of these tips on fast descents and haven't had any more wobbles. I think the tip about coming slightly out of the saddle and gripping the top tube with your knees is especially effective.

[charliefinnie]

Anyone else see Dan Lloyd hit by a pine cone at 1:52?

[Houseofpayne]

Had never experienced this in my life until today. New canyon gravel bike so was thinking that it could be as a result of the slightly wider tyres, who knows. I'm not going to lie, I thought it was curtains. I managed to reduce the speed through the back brake whilst doing my best to absorb the wobble. Great video chaps, wish I'd have watched this before today.

[colinfell]

Thanks guys, experienced this few times on different bikes. Most recent was a hired Specialized Tarmac on a long downhill bend, terrifying at c. 60kmph! Think it is caused by weight distribution and tensing up. Putting weight on pedal rather than saddle and relaxing grip definitely helps.