Thread Drift

[Trek420]

You steer by shifting your weight from side to side. So you're basically in a squat with most of your weight in your quads, and the bike dictates the alignment of your feet and knees - which changes as you go from left to right. It can be hard on iffy knees.

Thanks for the explanation. Is there such a thing as WSD motorcycles?

This one looks fast parked by the farm market

[OakLeaf]

Is there such a thing as WSD motorcycles?

Nope, just smaller ones. Narrow in the seat area helps too (single and twin-cylinder), since the more your legs are bowed out, the lower you need the seat height to be, to be able to touch the ground and support your weight and part of the bike's when you come to a stop.

Some women use aftermarket shock linkages and drop the forks in their bracket (called a triple tree) to lower the seat height ... but if you don't know what you're doing, that can really mess up the handling.

Then there's my nice light and low Honda 230 - overall very friendly to a small rider - which comes from the factory with a brake lever so far from the handlebar that Beowulf would have trouble with it. Luckily I was able to track down a very nice adjustable lever on the aftermarket, but I had to scour Japanese sites, make an educated guess about model names, and telephone the US distributor, who didn't list that part number on their site, to actually get one.

[Trek420]

Somebody here needs to become the Georgina Terry of motorcycles

[Pax]

Somebody here needs to become the Georgina Terry of motorcycles

Her name would be Karen Davidson (of Harley Davidson), not as concerned with the best fit of a motorcycle for women, but very involved in getting women into the sport.

It took me about four months and a $800 to get my SO's bike to fit her.

[Kitsune06]

+1, Pax. My 650 got shorty shocks put on it so I could flat-foot it, lowering the rear 2". Front went about 1/4" up through the tripletrees, which makes it super stable on straightaways and a little slow to corner, but that's ok. I'm no rocketeer. Changing out my fork springs was actually the greatest handling improvement.

X's harley got shorty shocks and I think we lowered the front, too, but I don't remember offhand.