I'm a short female. On my sportster I put 11" progressive 412 shocks on. This lowered the bike nicely. I then put Progressive lowering fork springs in the front - lowering it an inch. I have the "super reduced reach seat" on mine which lowers me another couple of inches and put me forward. Looking at the seat on her bike - it looks like a bit different than mine which is older. I would take that seat, take it to the local car upholsterer and have him take out some foam and put maybe gel in it. That will lower the seat even more and it will still feel comfortable on her bike. My boots are Harley with a 2" heel. I also did these changes to my dyna low rider. After these changes she should be able to flat foot it. On the sporty, I also put 10" mini-apes on - this made a big difference - she can pull them back towards her if need be so she can lean back a bit if she wants.

Hopefully she gets it worked out. She sure has a great looking bike!

 

That ones not the one w/ the height problem, that's rednose's and it sounds like he's got it good now. This is the bike we are speaking of that needs to be lowered some more, may be the same year as yours if yours is a little older, an '05 1200 custom.

In the pics a couple parts are taken off, springs including, as I work on it. Has this reach seat laid on there for now which I think may be coming off because it seems to be causing problems (puts her too close to the tank, so her feet end up feeling too under her).. Will checkout the seats you guys are recommending or have one of these modified - have the stock seat too.

Have the burly kit here w/ 10.5 shocks and the lowering springs for the front that is going in. It's not really going to do much though because I have to take the lowering brackets out to put the rear springs in, however will make the front & rear sit right and keep the shock travel down so int he process of bringing the bike closer to the ground it's preventing clearance problems since the shock travel will now be short. I strongly considered the progressives, went back in forth, but decided the burleys come a little shorter so went that way.

Jon

 

My wife is short as well. We put the burly rand lowering kit on her 08 883L then to our dismay still not low enough so she put thick sole on her boots. She still does not feel comfortable as she cannot flat foot both feet when stopped. We also bought a corbin close seat but had to cut it to fit the new 4.5 gal tank on. Then we found that cornering the stock kickstand and stock pipes rubbed when cornering so we bought the V&H Blackout 2:1 which is higher. To fix the kickstand I bought a used kickstand from a rice bike and fabricated a bracket where the rear footpeg goes. All in all lots of problems and one thing leads to another. I think we are going to give up her riding a bike and sell it. She is not comfortable on it.

 

I've never done it, so I don't know what the ride quality would be, but you could buy/make some rigid struts in place of the shocks that drop the fender right down to the wheel, and add a sprung solo seat. Maybe someone who has done similar can comment on what the ride would be like?

 

Update on progress - ordered a Kenda cruiser 140/70 16 inch, which is a diameter of about 1/4 less (or 1/8 inch lower) than a superlow, this ends up being about the only tire actually for motorcycles (versus scooters) w/ a low profile for a 16 inch rim, not my first choice but I saw it as a better alternative for the $75 than the tire off her ninja that is hanging around (better load rating, new tire, lower tire, not as narrow).. Only other option I found was going down to a 120 for the same height change or up to a real low profile 160.

Got the rear wheel off, working on some problems w/ the lights in the meantime (didn't clear the bags, license plate bracket was kinda bent and cracked for some reason). When the tire shows up will have that mounted and will be done w/ the lights at that point. The tire is going to drop it 7/8 of an inch without changing swingarm position, so if she could ride it before this will certainly be an improvement.

Jon

 

Thanks for that - that is definitely what I started noticing, once you get so low each change creates a new problem. I'm going with the strategy of getting the 1200 custom down down superlow height and then will see, since she could ride it before, hoping this round of changes does it.

Jon

 

As already mentioned, have the seat professionally reshaped.
HD sell "further forward mid controls" for sportsters. Moves the pegs about two inches forward of where they are now. Problem with mid controls is you have to put your feet out to clear the peg when touching the ground.
You can cut a bit out of the pulley cover for belt clearance.
Her confidence will increase if she's comfortable.

 

Thanks for that on the seat & further forward mids - was just showing her the seat the other day and talking about how to me I think it's wasting too much height in padding.

Tire showed up, will have it mounted tomorrow and be ready to get it together to see how the height works now. Height wise it's gonna be an improvement no matter what, going down 7/8 with this tire change.

 

It's good - girlfriend can now flatfoot w/ the boots.. Turns out she is 4 ft 10 inches BTW, so that explains why simple suspension lowering did not get it down to her comfort.

I haven't measured it but between suspension/tire/seat the seat height now is likely about 24.5 inches. I took the bike out today and it's perfectly reasonable to ride, not very comfortable for me being all bunched up and freezing my nuts off in 25 degree weather , but cruising around town without taking any special care I did not scrape once and didn't even notice anything in the ride (which is likely stiff now but I didn't notice at all).. I think I could still shave more and still have it be a good bike, just don't need to.

In short though I found some other stuff that needed to be messed with in addition to the belt finding ways to rub on the front pulley guard, crash bar had made it into the fender (due to bad wishful thinking bike lowering), rear tire had been contacting the wiring harness, belt guard had been poorly customized by some dumbass prior owner that left the bike fairly unsafe..

I put a front & rear slammer kit in it, low rear profile tire, customized the crash bar, made some adjustments to the kickstand/setup to pull it tight into the bike and gain some clearance, replaced belt guard and notched it out, some other little tweaks, and now just waiting on the front fender as it had to be fixed/painted, but I think even bottomed out now the crash bar can't contact it anymore - if it can hit the fender it won't be by much, it will just be a matter of dropping the fender down 1/4 inch on the tire.

I may put up a post on this at some point for the next person; I took lots of pics along the way. Thanks for all your help!

Jon

sideNoFender1.jpg
sideNoFender2.jpg

 

Cool you got everything figured out. Hopefully she has a good time riding the bike now.

The bike looks really good BTW.