My girlfriend had bought a sportster and it just wasn’t low enough for her to be comfortable on - we knew this getting into it and had a shop pre-arranged to customize it to fit her. After the first season it was obvious it just wasn’t low enough; I started looking at the bike and found problems it had from being poorly lowered (from when she bought it) as well as new problems the shop caused that worked on the bike after she bought it…

Not only had the shop failed to notice basic and potentially dangerous problems (which I’ll go into later) but they managed to cause new ones & damage to the bike with their own work. Although I am quite capable, bikes I had avoided working on for the most part, especially hers, due to the infrequent repairs needed and safety concerns. At this point though I took it upon myself to learn what was needed and figure this out.

In the process of scouring the web for guidance on lowering bikes I found some good advice, and got some on this forum, but also read lots of bad advice and dumb ideas. The stories I read included people shredding up their rear tire on a bolt inside the rear fender, putting snake oil in the front shocks to keep the crash bar from destroying the fender, belts damaged from rubbing on guards, zip ties on shocks as a method for determining shock travel when lowering, putting shocks on a stiffer setting to prevent the tire from hitting the inside of the fender, belt guards smashing into oil tanks, wiring harnesses getting chewed through.. Questions like “will my rear tire rub on the fender if I lower the bike 1 inch?”..

When doing this work it became clear to me that the above are all very avoidable if one does not take shortcuts; prior to buying parts or attempting to lower a bike one simply needs to take some careful measurements and it will be clear what works, what does not, and what problems need to be solved before installing some kit. Maybe on some touring bikes, stock right out of the box, if the suspension should bottom out you will damage the bike, I honestly don’t know, but it doesn’t sound right to me. What I can say is what I’m talking about here will apply to a sportster, dyna, and likely to most models one way or the other, but specifics and limitations change. Some bikes you possibly just can’t lower.

Take this for what it is – amateur advice. My goal is to provide the next amateur with some better info than was available to me when I started looking at this – and maybe a few people will read on, take some basic measurements, and avoid shredding their rear tires. My purpose is not going into every faucet of bike lowering, rather I just will cover some basics based on what I found; I took lots of pictures along the way to share with the next guy.

I’m not covering ground clearance and lean angle, but keep in mind even if everything works OK suspension-wise, you are always compromising clearance and lean angle when you actually lower a bike. How low you can go depends on what you need the bike to do and how you plan to ride the bike; it certainly can create a handling limitation and safety issue and you may not know how much of a difference things make until you actually get to riding – it’s best not to figure those things out negotiating a corner at 80 MPH, so use common sense and take it easy for a while after you’ve made such changes.

Her Bike

My girlfriend’s sportster had stock suspension with lowering brackets in the rear and the forks were slid up on the triple tree about 2 inches; a crash bar was installed as well as a solo reach seat; otherwise the bike was about stock. What I found, see pics, was the rear tire was occasionally rubbing in the fender and was starting to eat at turn signal wiring, the crash bar dented the front fender, the belt guard was dangerously modified such that it might fall off and was occasionally contacting the frame & oil tank, and the belt was occasionally contacting both the belt guard and pulley guard – and at this point it still was not low enough. Now it’s almost an inch lower than it was then with no such problems; there are easy solutions to all these things if one uses their brain a little.

Simple Options to Consider

Before you start looking at lowering parts or taking the bike apart, the two real simple options to fit a short person on a bike are a reach/slim/lower seats and taller boots. To help prove the seat out, remove the seat, and see how you fit without it – that likely shows you how much the seat adds to the height; then shop around for seats or looking into having some padding shaved out of yours. For a bike not ridden on long rides, which is definitely the case for some, you could go as far as very low profile bobber seat with a very thin pad, at no detriment if you never are on the bike for more than a half hour. As far as boots go, for a lift you can have taller soles put on boots, a female can seek out some platform style boots, or a male can seek out logging style boots.