should I lower the seat and any suggestions besides a sargent seat who said I would only get maybe and inch. Seen a lowering link by Soupy which is adjustable up to 4 inches but what about the front of the bike if you lower the back ? I want to get it done this winter I am getting older and need my feet on the ground. ride with one foot down for years.
Be careful with the adjustable link A girl from vfrd almost kill herself couple years ago I strongly recommend the lust racing triangle do the search let us know if you need more info. :welcome: to the nuts house
Certainly any lowering of the suspension will make an already poor setup even worse. If you can get there by using a different seat or making modifications to your stock seat I think you would be much better off. If you must lower the suspension, make sure to lower it as little as possible. Up front you only have about 10mm before you get into the danger zone. Out back you can lower it a bit more, in the 15-20mm range. If you need more than that it would probably be best to look into some internal shock modifications to limit the amount of travel. In all cases your performance will be hindered, but you have to do what you have to do! Setting up bikes for shorter riders is not nearly as easy as most people think.
Be careful with the adjustable link products, there was one product that failed on a rider and she was lucky to keep the bike upright. The best lowering method is with inverting or swapping out the "triangles" or "dog bone" (solid piece type). For lowering kit, Lust Racing seems to be a good place to find what you need. Lowering kits for motorcycles | Ride Height Lowering | Motorcycle suspension linkage kits | Motorcycle Accessories by Lust Racing Ltd
Sargent seat isn't gonna lower your riding position. Trust me, I'm 5'5 and it didn't help me ANY. Much more comftorable seat tho so great mod for that purpose.
Speaking of seat, the same rider who suffered the broken dog bone ended up shaving the seat down and made it more narrow and put the stock dog bone back in and now she is able to be more "flat footed" not completely flat footed with both feet but enough that she feels comfortable. You may seek a local upholsterer and have him alter the stock seat or talk with Sargent and see if they can do something similar. Of course this depends on your inseam. Riders 5'8" and above seem to be OK but any shorter than that definitely have trouble with the seat height.
Im 5'6 and had my seat shaved a bit and installed the lust triangles plus raised the fork tubes 7mm and love it . highly recomended
Firstly welcome to the forum As others have warned some lowering links are potentially lethal. As for lowering an 800 there are several things which help. If you are happy with DIY the stock seat padding can be reprofiled, so its narrower and less thick, which will make a big difference, with no side effects. Helibars provide a more upright riding position which also make it a bit easier to shift to left when you need put your foot on the floor. Beware once you start fitting lowering links, adjusting the forks or rotating the rear trangle plates you may need to shorten the side stand for stability when parked. Some also remove the centre stand which on a lowered bike may ground with the bike leaned over. Finally it stuck me that you may want to try and contact Voided76 - who recently posted that they were trying to raise their VFR back to stock height, and just might have a proper VFR lowering kit to sell. The Search feature on here should find their post/profile - then either add to their original post or send a PM. Lets have a photo of your VFR! Good luck Skimad4x4
I lowered my 07 using the kit from Sigma Cycles and had no issues with the bike/handling. Note: I am not a very aggressive rider, Never had any suspension bottoming problems including with 2 up and full factory luggage including the top box fully packed. My neighbor bought my VFR and he and his wife kept it lowered and still have not experienced any suspension clearance issues and their combined weight is about 30 lbs more than me and my wife. Be sure you order the shortened side stand or the bike will sit far too upright for secure parking - it made me nervous it would high side off the side stand. Go for it! BTW, the folks at Sigmacycle were fantastic to deal with. Awesome customer service!
I shaved down the seat and it is amazing the results Ive achieved. I may even remove a small portion of seat pan on the sides if it is truly taking up leg length. Thank you for your advise. You saved me hundreds of dollars. I also got a pair of with a higher heel adn I amDONE. thanks again
Hi Jamie, What would you think of buying a bike that has been lowered and putting it back to the original height? I am looking at a 5th gen that seems to have been lowered I reckon 3" at least,I'm wondering should I move on and find a bike that hasn't been messed with? thanks
I wouldn't let it stop you. Depending on how the bike was lowered it could be pretty easy to get it back to stock ride height. I don't see how any damage could have been done to the bike so you should be good to go. Good luck!
I have the same year VFR, am four inches taller than you and can't stand flat footed. I think the Sargeant seat makes it harder to be flat footed because its wider at the tank than stock. The Lust link lowers the rear 30mm, right? How did you decide to take 7mm off the front? Did it have anything to do with installing the Helibars? Also, do you think the Helibars are worth the $280 they ask for them?
The Helis are a great mod and makes a huge difference for me. While investigating lowering my bike I learned about the lust trianles from Tink here on VFRWorld. we have some awesome people here and he educated me on where .what and how. Oh.. definitely have to shorten your side stand.....just found a local weld shop and had it heli arched. hope this helps Coming Soon - Future home of something quite cool
It does help - I looked at the Lust triangles, but since I don't know how much I need to lower the bike, I went with a Soupy's Performance adjustable lowering link. Some members have mentioned people having this type of link fail, but Soupy's says those are the cheaper ones made out of aluminum. They've never had one fail and it only takes a couple minutes once installed to adjust. I'm still curious about how you arrived at 7mm for the front drop. I plan on adjusting the forks a bit and someone suggested that you can check the level of the bike from the bottom fins on the engine. If you're using the stock seat, I can see how the 30mm drop on the back was enough, but I think I'll probably end up lowering a bit more, not much, but more because of the Sargeant seat on mine.
I raised my forks 10mm based on Jamie's caution, not more than 10mm, and rotated my stock triangles (not Jamie's advice on this one. He's cautious about this). I have a Sargent seat, Heli bars, and I'm 5'8". The stock side stand is still fine in almost all situations and I can touch the ground nearly flat footed. Also my inseam is about 30", I would imagine this is more important than our actual height. John
