it always amuses me when someone who's 5'5" tall gets a harley touring bike only to find out that they're not able to flat foot it when stopping. Then they try to make the bike fit them. somehow i'm thinking that they should have sat on the bike in the showroom before buying it. a deluxe or heritage softail would have been much easier for them to fit on. i see lots of discussion on how to lower the suspension, shorter seats, etc, when in fact some people just don't have long enough legs to fit on a flh. maybe platform shoes from the seventies will come back in style and they'll be able to fit. this wasn't written to offend the vertically challenged, but for some, another model would have been more suitable.

 

I don't get the purpose of this post at all. People will alter their bikes to fit their personal tastes/needs. I've seen 300 Lb. men riding Sportsters and men so tall on dynas that they looked ridiculous. So what, they're riding what they want to ride and thats cool. If a guy wants to drop 20 plus grand on a touring and drop another few grand to lower it to get it to fit him, it's no differn't than the rest of us who buy the bike and drop thousands on chrome and performance goodies. Just my $.02

 

It make more sense to spend your $ to make your ride fit you than it does to spend it on crome.

 

+1!!!
I have an old Army buddy who is 5'-4", his S/O is 5'-0". Neither of them have a problem with their FLHS.
If you ain't one of those 'vertically challenged' riders, what's it to you!!!
You ride what you like...let the others do the same!!

 

If you can only ride a bike if you can "flat foot" it, you need to learn how to ride. I know vertically challenged people who ride sport tourers and dual sports, not exactly bikes with low seat heights.

 

We're all challenged to varying degrees.

I bought a new Road KiIng Classic knowing that I have always had full dressers with all of the extras. Before the RKC, I've never owned a touring motorcycle that didn't have a sound system and full fairing and tour pak. Needless to say, I didn't keep the RKC very long.

 

A few grand to lower a bike. Lowering mine was so cheap, the dealer did it for free.

To the OP. While the Heritage and Deluxe are both fine bikes no matter how much $$$ one would spend they will never be on par with an Ultra for touring.
I'd bet that tall guys spend more $$$ to get their bikes to fit them.

 

To the OP. I am one of those" Vertical Challenged" you are talking about 5'6" 30"inseam and ride a '09 FLHTCU and yea I had to spend some bucks to get it so it fits but like someone else said I made it fit and there is no comparison between the comfort of a softail and an ultra and I ride that ultra as good as a softail rider anyday.

 

It's better to buy what you truly want and do what you can to make it work for you. If one really wanted that Ultra, but decided on a Heritage for fitment reasons would they truly be happy? That's the rationale I used in deciding to get the FLTR I really wanted, rather than the FLH_.

 

But I did let my 5'4" friend sit on my bike and wow, he would've required quite a bit to make it workable. Guess he has really short legs.