Steering damper device

Abstract

A steering damper device attenuating the oscillations of the handlebar of a motorcycle during operation, and more particularly, a device capable of varying a damping force variable. The steering damping device prevents the adverse effect of oscillations of the handlebar that would otherwise occur when the load on the front wheel of the motorcycle becomes light. The device also provides a simplified structure for reducing the inaccuracies of sensing of the front wheel load caused by a variation in temperature. The device includes a rotary steering damper provided in a coaxial manner on a steering shaft. Either a damping force or zero damping force is produced by a variable valve arranged in the bypass passage communicating with a right liquid chamber and a left liquid chamber. The variable valve is controlled by a control device and generates a damping force in the steering damper only when the acceleration of the motorcycle as detected by the acceleration sensor exceeds a threshold value. In addition, when the vehicle body speed detected by the vehicle body speed sensor exceeds a threshold value, the vehicle body speed can be applied as a weighting condition for control. Thus, the damping force occurring when the acceleration exceeds the predetermined threshold can be corrected at those times when a threshold value of the vehicle body speed is exceeded.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.