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Doodle crashes on a new Janus !

Spoody

Spoody

Well travelled
Location
North Carolina ,USA
I posted this on another forum and it kind of got buried in the Janus forum . This was a serious case of Death Wobble . All the reasons they give sound to me like things the Harley tech tells you when they can't fix your bike . That being said even if they were right I'm not getting back on that bike . I think it had nothing to do with their reasons but there is something seriously wrong with that particular bike .
 
Spoody said:
I posted this on another forum and it kind of got buried in the Janus forum . This was a serious case of Death Wobble . All the reasons they give sound to me like things the Harley tech tells you when they can't fix your bike . That being said even if they were right I'm not getting back on that bike . I think it had nothing to do with their reasons but there is something seriously wrong with that particular bike .
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Right, I read your post at https://www.royalenfieldowners.com/index.php?threads/janus-motorcycles.11322/post-128445 and there's also a post of this video at https://www.royalenfieldowners.com/index.php?threads/road-grooves.12067/ .

Be nice if this was confined to one thread, IMO.
 
iowa al said:
I don't know if any of you have seen this guys take on what happened.

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Very helpful analysis of Doodle's death wobble. My takeaway is to lean forward if a death wobble starts to shift weight forward as the Dunlop video clip showed. He said do not brake in a death wobble. I'm guessing that rear brake only could worsen the wobble and front brake would reduce front wheel traction. Anyone concur with that?
 
If you slow the video way down, you can see she's riding very close to the transition line between roadway and shoulder. There is a tar snake at that transition. She starts to feel the wobble, and pulls in the clutch raising the revs right before a grooved patch of roadway. This is a short patch. I think the tar snake started it, and the grooved patch made things worse. Then releases the clutch with the revs 2000 rpm higher than normal back on the normal roadway. Then goes to the shoulder where she eventually loses it. Maybe hit a walnut sized rock on the shoulder at a very unstable time. Who knows for sure. First ride on the bike. Unfamiliar how it handles. Seems like a series of events led to a bad outcome.
Where I live, the transition between road and shoulder may be smooth, or there could be a dip there that will try to yank the bars out of your hand. I try to stay away from the edge of the road. I try to ride closer to the center line in case a big deer jumps out in front of me to give myself as much time as I can to avoid it. The deer here are huge, with all the corn they can eat. A huge buck ran out in front of me a couple of days ago. Got three chirps out of the shinko 705 and he was gone before I could crap my pants. Was running 60 mph at the time. Things happen so fast. I have had a half dozen run out in front of me in just the last month.
I am not committed to running the center line. I ride anywhere in the lane I think is best based on conditions.
 
I had a death wobble on a 1982? Yamaha 650 Maxim @ 85 mph. I hit the rear brake as hard as I could without locking the tire. Good thing I was too scared to use the front. Not because that was the right thing to do (because I didn't know), But because I didn't want to get off at 85. When I got down to 40, it came out of it. That was 40 years ago.
 
I had never heard of Doodle or the Janus 250. I googled the Janus and it's an odd looking machine it looks like the fork angle is quite sharp though it's hard to be certain with the Earles forks. I rode an Earles forks machine years ago and I remember it was stable until it wasn't there was no transition between straight line and turning it just dropped into a turn. That was a sample of one 15 minutes ride so I could have ridden a bad one.
 
SwampriderECU said:
I've seen some of Doodle's content .. some are interesting others not mu cup of tea :)
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I'm not always into her content either - Something I really appreciate though is the willingness to admit to inexperience, and to train to develop riding skills and the ability to handle motorcycles of different sizes and weights. Find this pretty inspiring and a good example - I pop my head in once and a while and see what she is posting
 
beowulf said:
Very helpful analysis of Doodle's death wobble. My takeaway is to lean forward if a death wobble starts to shift weight forward as the Dunlop video clip showed. He said do not brake in a death wobble. I'm guessing that rear brake only could worsen the wobble and front brake would reduce front wheel traction. Anyone concur with that?
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Take throttle off immedialy, do not touch any brake and hug that tank. Lay down on that tank.

The weight shift has a chance of canceling the tires resonance and the wobble goes away.

You cannot fix the suspension with your arms. You have no idea what to with the suspension forces resonating on the tire.
 
I don't care for Squidtips but he did go down the rabbit hole of what's actually happening to you when front tire reverberation starts a tank slapper.

Sorry for his language.


When you feel the wobble increasing the handlebar turns on each swing, hug that tank immediately... don't wait. Taking the throttle off has a chance to temper the resonance but takes way too many wheel spins to accomplish, so your bodyweight shift is very likely to kill the resonance entirely in just a couple of front wheel spins.

If you try to control the wobble with your hands you're likely not going to cancel it. Some old cruisers like to wobble from poor wheel alignment and a hundred other reasons (ask any fan of old Vulcans, they're used to not having any stability in the front and they work the baby wobble the whole ride).


 
Or…. as Yammie tells us at 8:44 above, the bike could be designed with the right geometry, suspension, weight distribution, and components to preclude speed wobbles at all. I’d put my RE Interceptor into the “bike made right” category, where I can run at 140 kph or faster on Ontario’s rubbish highway surfaces and the bike is solid, on rails with no wobble. This is on Jamas.
 
Admiral Beez said:
Or…. as Yammie tells us at 8:44 above, the bike could be designed with the right geometry, suspension, weight distribution, and components to preclude speed wobbles at all. I’d put my RE Interceptor into the “bike made right” category, where I can run at 140 kph or faster on Ontario’s rubbish highway surfaces and the bike is solid, on rails with no wobble. This is on Jamas.
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Janus is in Indiana and they have fairly nice roads all over the state.

RE is used to their customers riding on top of garbage that has the surface smoothness of an asteroid. And a massive rider community. And Indian government employees ride their bikes. And they've stolen engineers from other bikemakers who have been moribund about keeping talent. All that adds up.

Bajaj and Hero also have "the world is our test track" advantages as well vs. niche and custom makers.
 
I've watched the videos and pondered things, trying to come up with an unbiased opinion (for myself; I don't care what anyone else thinks).
I weighed both arguments (the guy on the BRP and Yammienoob). They both make points to consider.
But the one thing I came back to was the basic design of the Janus and how it got that way. It was designed for visual impact, first and foremost. I'm assuming here, so take it for what it is, but just how much R&D do you think went into the Janus frame/geometry? We're talking about a little operation in Indiana that started off in the world of scooters. I suspect there was way more "this frame design looks good" than "let's spend endless hours testing numerous approaches/designs to find the one that handles best". Janus is a cottage industry; they unlikely have much in the way of real R&D like any mass market manufacturer. I'm guessing they built a frame and suspension, tried it awhile, maybe tweaked it a bit, and then made jigs to put it into production. And most of these admittedly wimpy 250cc machines likely don't do much more than go to the coffee shop and back.
There is also the question of the tensile rigidity of the steel they use. A decent amount of frame flex would easily exacerbate the beginnings of a death wobble.

OTOH, as many commenters asked in Yammie's video, have we heard of any other Janus owners experiencing this phenomenon?

I like Doodle the person, and she really works at being a better rider. She's put miles down on a lot of big, heavy machines that her little self struggles with. You'd think a lightweight toy like a Janus would be more easily managed. Doodle has ridden several RE models and never had an issue. But I do also think, having followed her over the years on and off, that she has to work at being a good rider. She's not a natural, and so something more...challenging...to control may have been a contributor.

Lastly, consider the handlebar design on that thing. Those antique style, wrap-back bars provide a much different experience than normal, more straight-across bars. The leverage they provide is very different.

The grooved surface and the transition bump were the instigators, but I am leaning towards the bike's combination of engineering and design (with a form over function directive) was probably the biggest reason that crash occurred.
 
SteveJB said:
You beat me to it. I've seen all 3 of the videos referenced here and I feel Yammie Noob has the most realistic take on the issue. Back when I weighted around 150 lbs, I rode a Honda CM185. We have grooved pavement all over the place around here. I never experienced a death wobble.
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Just saw her 2 videos on this today. Didn't realize she had gotten into an accident. Her second video shows that she has pretty much recovered from the accident. I don't even weigh that much now in my old age. If fact when I saw my cardiologist recently, he asked if I was eating ok. He also said that I need to exercise more. Guess I'll never reach 150lbs.
 
There are lots of valuable threads on this forum for all aspects of RE ownership but I think this thread and the deep expertise shown by several posters is the most valuable I've seen. A big thank you for educating me on this important subject.
 
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