steering problems

[-toby-]

im riding a 04 kona stuff with drop off comps on it and i had a big bail the other day and bent my handle bars to a farely large extent. but now when i ride aroundmy bike seems to turn to the left, if im riding aroudn with no hands it does the same. and if im doin stopies he bike automaticly veers to the left.

wat do you think the problem is and how will i go about fixing it

thanks

 

[manny24]

either or both of these 2 things:

the forks are twisted\warped,
and\or the stem has just spun a bit on the steerer, not uncommon.

if its the later, no big deal. either way, take it to good bike shop,let them check it out, and BUY A NEW HANDELBAR FOR CRYING OUT LOAD!!!.

a'hem, sorry. u dont want the bars to fail on a landing etc, its best to change them on every good hit.

 

[Grip]

Toby, besides Manny24's good advice, you'll also find that if your "bail" was big enough to knock the rear triangle out of line with the rest of the frame then your bike will DEFINITELY be trying to turn itself around corners. It's quite complicated to describe how to check this using string-lines etc, but most DECENT shops should have a basic frame alignment guide that can check this in about 2 minutes and without pulling anything off the bike (just wheel it in).

A BASIC check that you can do yourself though is to stand your bike perfectly straight (get someone to hold it right on the balance point and with the front wheel perfectly lined up with the frame) then crouch down behind and "eye" the line-up of back wheel to front wheel. They should be both perfectly vertical and parallel to each other. If not then there's your problem.

 

[-toby-]

thanks for that ill get the biek shop to cheack it out