Don't know much about Sportys, and height isn't a problem for me, but is there anything you can do to reduce the width? Shave a bit off the sides of the seat? reconfigure anything that's adding to the width? Exhaust maybe?
Bringing the feet closer together when they are down will gain you some "height", and help with the confident feel.

 

^^^ The HD reduced reach seat is very narrow. My wife's legs are almost touching the frame, and it definitely helps with reach to the ground.

The Sportster will work, you just have to set it up right. My wife took the course on a 500 street, and transitioned to the Sporty very easily.

 

I found this pick of my Wife's bike with the bags off. You can see the profile of the tire, the 1" blocks, and how narrow the reduced reach seat is. I could not find a pic of her on the bike, but this works for her 5'0" height.

 

Thanks for that! Great to have a picture and positive words!

Yesterday I looked it up - the sporster super low has a larger rear wheel, believe a 17 inch, however also a very low pro tire, which gets the height of the tire down to ~24 inches. The 1200 custom I'm working on has a 25.5 inch rear tire w/ a 16 inch wheel.

The superlow out of the box starts 3/4 inches closer to the ground just based on the tire & wheel combo - it's funny they actually made it harder on themselves going bigger on the wheel, but it so happens they make very low profile tires for that size wheel.

If the height is good but the tire choices are not, we could eventually just go to a superlow rear wheel (or equivalent aftermarket).

Who's 1 inch blocks are those? This is one option I may have later - basically though I'd want the shortest blocks I can get, the blocks the bike has now have a slot but the lowest setting is quite far out.

Also, in thinking about the front pulley guard, if that becomes a problem it would be easy enough to buy a used one (so I don't wreck the immaculate chrome one it's got today) and remove some material to add belt clearance for running it slammed.

Jon

 

I used the LA Choppers blocks. They looked a little beefier than some of the others I was looking at. I don't think you will have a problem with the pulley guard. The one on the above bike looks the same as other Sportys I have looked at, and it clears easily.

 

I'll take a look at it again, but what I noticed - which is something you will only notice when you remove the shocks, put the bike on a stand, and lift the swingarm to simulate travel while measuring, is when the stock shock would be compressed just a touch over 3/4 inch the belt began to squeak, because it was rubbing, intermittently.

When you went up higher with the swingarm, ie compressing the stock shock > 1 inch it became constant, and this happens before there is any tire clearance problem.

This problem is caused by the blocks, basically when you add a block in there you do not reduce shock travel but lower the bike. At least with this model sporster, after taking measurements I see you *must* somehow reduce shock travel to safely lower the bike.

Her bike had been gently ridden by her and the previous female owner, so even though I'd say it was kinda unsafe I don't think it was often getting compressed very much. With another owner I'd bet there would be damage to the belt, maybe 20 miles with a 230 lb guy or a passenger and the belt would get torn apart.

Like you said though - if I use the 10.5 inch shocks, and keep the shocks in the stock hole, the clearance will be fine, the shocks are nearly bottomed out before any rubbing occurs and you will not be doing that for any period of time. But if it wasn't for the guard clearance I could use the short shocks and the blocks, provided the tire was just a little thinner and/or lower profile, such to allow it to tuck into the fender.

Hmmm - Edit - this does bring up one point though - I should check that front pulley. This bike had 3 owners, male->repossessed with very few miles, female->previous owner, then us.. It's possible that front pulley got messed with if he didn't like the top end gearing or something, a little larger and it could cause this.

Jon

 

The shorter shocks seem to be the way to go if you are having those belt issues.

 

Another thing she might want to try~
Daytona makes some nice boots for women. They have a model that "lifts" anyone 2.4". She bought the Lady Pilot GTX boots from Revzilla.com.
I have it on good authority that they are comfy, protect, and look great. No, they aren't cheap. No, they aren't cheaply made either. You get what you pay for with these.
If you amortize the cost over 10-15 seasons, it isn't so bad. Warning: these boots also "lift" the legs higher when her feet are on the pegs. This may cause her hips to ache after a long ride. Just an FYI.

Since she is petite, does she have a problem with the control levers? If so, then Roland Sands Designs has adjustable levers for HD. These made a HUGE difference for my gf.
I'm assuming she already has her PPG?

 

^^^ Good advice. If you look at the pics of my wife's bike, it has adjustable levers on it that are dog legged (like a sport bike). They are made in Europe (not cheap), but they were the only ones I could find that fit her bike. I don't believe the Roland Sands worked for her year of Sportster. They made a huge difference in her being able to reach the levers.

 

Thanks for that guys - she went through 2 permutations of boots, first were actual motorcycle boots, lift sounded good on paper but in reality was a glorified work boot. 2nd were something with that sort of lift, which could be related to how she feels about the pegs being too close now as you point out.

I bet she could get something higher quality but I think she is getting the lift. No issues w/ the levers yet mentioned, but the shop put at least a short shift lever on it and the brake doesn't look very long either, so they may have taken care of that when converting controls to mids.

What is PPG?

Jon