[william_c]

I have been lurking around this web site for a few weeks now and now I have a question.

I am a short person. I am about 5.2 and I have never rode a bike before. I did take the MSF class and I learned that it is more complicated to ride a bike that I thought it would. I have been looking to buy a bike but don’t know what to buy. I see all these reviews on bikes but everybody is like 6feet tall. That does not work for me. I really want to ride but I don’t want to over buy. What should I do as a short person. Thanks for any help or idea.

[Jim]

I’m 5’6″ and I can flat foot my Kawasaki Ninja 250 while stopped. It has one of the lowest seat heights of any sport bikes that I’ve found, plus it is a great beginner bike. Cruiser seat heights aren’t as high as sport bikes so that is another option.

[ShannonG]

I’m 5’5″ and my GS500f is very comfortable to me. I have the preload in the rear dialed all the way down, but you can also put a lowering link in it too.

[Andrew]

I’m 5’4 and I was able to flat foot a Rebel and a Nighthawk at the course. Same goes for Virago at a dealership. I am buying a Ninja on Wednesday and I can almost flat foot it with both feet. It felt so much lighter and better balanced than the other bikes for my height though. Try a Ninja if you like the sport bike look lots of smaller people ride them.

[Loki]

Im 6’3″ and my GS500f is comfy but lond trips (hour or so) my back and but start hurting.

[Budd]

You can get the ninja lowered if you need to. The rebel would be an option if you like cruiser styles.

“I am the best there is at what I do, and what I do ain’t nice.”-Wolverine

[Matt]

Also:

Buell blast has a 25″ lowered seat option. That puts it lower than some cruisers.

If you like cruisers, then pretty much they all will have low enough seat heights for you (or have lowered seats available), and their centre of gravity is so low that they are uber easy to keep up.

A buddy of mine has the new Ninja 250 and is roughly your height, he has no problem sitting on it.

Really, there are a lot of options for smaller riders when starting out.
—
“The two seconds between ‘Oh S**!’ and the crash isn’t a lot of practice time.”

[william_c]

What is a GS500f?

I was told that if you lowered the sport bike all the way down, it changes the center of gravity and and can cause the bike to be unsafe. Also, you can cause grounding?

[william_c]

Are you talking about the Honda Rebel? I did not like it because it did not go fast enough. It sounds bad but, if you have to do some interstate driving, you want something that says at least 100mph. Now, that is what I was told. Am I getting bad or wrong advice? I have a 5 mile drive on a busy interstate every day. Sometimes it is stop and go traffic.

I have heard about the Nighthawk’s but I have not seen one in person. I haven’t found a dealer that can show me one.

What is a Virago?

[william_c]

What is a Buell? Who makes it?

What other options are there? I am hopping sometime later this week, I can go by a dealer and sit on a 250 ninja.

[Andrew]

The Honda Rebel is a good little bike that can handle interstate speeds. It won’t be the most comfortable bike at those speeds though. I don’t know which road your doing 100mph on but I don’t do that in my car let alone on a bike. If your a noob then you’ll just get yourself killed going that fast.

I mentioned the Ninja because having ridden one I now know how much torque they have. On the interstate you will want to get out of peoples way and be able to to do 65-85mph. I would think for that little (5 minutes) interstate time that a Ninja would be fine. If you are in stop and go traffic a big bike with lots of torque is just more weight to balance while you wait. If your prefer a standard or a cruiser then I wouldn’t discount a 250 but you might want to look at a 500 cc cruiser.

The Virago is what the Yamaha VStar used to be called before they changed the name.

[Andrew]

Buell is part of HD. It was started by a former employee who started making sport bikes with HD engines. HD bought him out.

[ShannonG]

Sorry; it’s a Suzuki GS500f.
I didn’t want to alter the handling of my bike either, so I just adjusted the preload and didn’t bother with a lowering link. I would think someone your height would want to get the link though. At 5’2″, I doubt very much you’ll have enough mass to bottom out the rear shock with a lowering link in.

[william_c]

Yeah, you are right. 100 is to fast. What I meant to say was on the speedometer it should top at least 100 because you don’t want to do that speed but you want a bike that can cruse at a 65 or 70 without beating you to death while riding it.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not discounting a 250 but I also don’t want to be run over by a big mack truck. I have sat on an S40 and I am thinking about it, but I haven’t seen many in the for sale adds. I think I did my training on an 500 LTD but I can’t find any around where I am at. I really didn’t look at the bike much. I was more interested in keeping the bike upright and through the turns.

[Amoryl]

a smaller bike’ll be easier to learn on, especially if you’re a tad on the short side. the added power of a bigger bike would likely be offset by the extra amount of wrestling you’ll have to do to get it to do what you want it to do. what a speedometer goes up to doesn’t have a great deal of bearing for the most part, in my cage experience. my cargo van goes up to 120 on the speedo, I believe, but there’s no hope in hades that it’ll ever hit that speed. my old geo tracker’s speedo went to 90 and I got clocked (I was young and dumb) at 115, I’d maxed the speedo out and the car just kept speeding up. I can’t imagine a bike going that fast down the highway, the tracker was shaking like jello in an earthquake and it weighed more than anything short of a goldwing. most advice I’ve read that I’ve felt had any merit whatsoever generally advised against relying on speed to get yourself out of situations anyway. and 5 miles interstate isn’t much anyway, I’d say stick to a smaller bike that you can handle, something that you can maneuver nimbly and feel comfortable on will get you out of far more situations than raw power and speed will, and if not…well…you’re doing it wrong.

[Author]

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