Motorcycle Safety & Driveability: Front end handel Bar position, worst case scenario, degree position

Question
I just road a 2002 Shadow.The title says in was a rebuild. It hasps 15,000 miles. The bike was built 08/07/2001 and date of salvage was 02/13/2002. so the bike has been around. It's a repo. Question is when riding straight doenn road the handle bars are cocked to the right about 20 degrees. I am not sure if it was me, haven't ridden a bike in 20 years but it felt like there was a slight pull to the right also. Can the forks be adjusted with the plate at the top of the tubes, or is it a much bigger problem. Tires are worn straight too, no strange wear patterns. Thanks Mulligan

Answer
This will take a little sleuthing on your part.

The best possible scenario is that the handlebars are merely bent. That's just a matter of buying new bars (there are about 1,000,000 different ones available, so happy shopping!) To test this, see if you can actually bend the bars back into the 0-degree position. If you can, and it feels okay, you can ride it like that but only long enough to get new bars ordered and installed.

If the bike took a pretty good hit, not unlikely with a salvage, it is possible that the forks or triple tree are tweaked. In either case, they'll need to be replaced. Worst case scenario is that the bars, forks, triple, and steering head (frame) are all tweaked. Replacing the bars, forks, and triple will most likely solve your problem, but if the frame itself is bent or cracked you'll need to have an expert look at it and/or fix it, or buy a new frame for it.

I know it's not the best of news, but hopefully that helps. You can find lots of information online for determining if your forks are bent ... sadly I'm not as much of an expert in that area.

Pat