Overall height of bike

[StevieD]

Greetings all, first post. This site is amazing, and I'm proud to be a member of it.

I bought a 1979 GS750 from a friend. The bike needed a new battery to be able to start, and it runs fairly well. I'm sure it will need a lot of TLC to get it into tip-top shape, but it doesn't appear that it will need a lot of rebuilding.

In any case, the only thing keeping me from riding it now is the disparity between the overall height of the bike and the overall length of my legs. In other words, I'm rather short, the bike's a bit tall. Specifically, flat footed leaning to one side means balls of feet and toes on the other side. The seat had been reupholstered, and judging by pics of other bikes same year and model, they added what appears to be 3 to 4 inches of additional foam padding to the seat when they did so. I think 3 inches would give me all I need to be flat footed if that's all I did.

But I also noticed that the rear of the bike seems awful high compared to others. I have a couple pictures in my album on this site, but here is one for an example.

So the rear shocks are adjustable, but is that mainly for the stiffness of the suspension (or the amount of travel for the shocks)? Or will this affect the height of the bike, and thus the amount of space between the tire and the rear fender?

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[reddirtrider]

You can loosen the front triples a bit and slide the forks up. It looks like your a bit high in the front anyway. Do keep in mind that doing this changes the steering geomentry so do do overboard.

You'll get a lot of bang for the buck by cutting the seat down also.

 

[Billy Ricks]

If the preload is cranked all the way up it will change how far the bike squats with you in the seat. Get rid of the extra padding and if it's still too tall you can pull the fork tubes up in the triples to drop the front a little. Do that in small increments because it will change how the bike handles. The steering will quicken on you and you'll have more oversteer. Nothing wrong with that but you need to go a little at a time so you don't go too far.

 

[Billy Ricks]

Steve beat me to it.

 

[DMB]

Here is a picture (from suzukicycles.com, a great resource) of the same year and model of your bike.

The seat on yours does look like it is about 2 or so inches too tall. So putting the correct seat on will help.

They all beat me to it.

 

[reddirtrider]

Steve beat me to it.

I'm fast, just ask my wife.

 

[Billy Ricks]

I'm fast, just ask my wife.

My wife calls me slow, just not in that way.

 

[StevieD]

My wife calls me slow, just not in that way.

Speaking of wives, mine just shakes her head, smirks and walks away as I peruse all the information on this site. Perhaps it is because I occasionally begin to laugh maniacally at yet another answer to a question that 3 weeks on the web WITHOUT this site hadn't been able to answer.

This site / forum is AWESOME! Thanks for the rapid responses. If there are any more people who have had experience lowering their bikes (preferably 77-79 GS750-ish), please chime in!

 

[Larry D]

Speaking of wives, mine just shakes her head, smirks and walks away as I peruse all the information on this site. Perhaps it is because I occasionally begin to laugh maniacally at yet another answer to a question that 3 weeks on the web WITHOUT this site hadn't been able to answer.

This site / forum is AWESOME! Thanks for the rapid responses. If there are any more people who have had experience lowering their bikes (preferably 77-79 GS750-ish), please chime in!

Don't worry, after she realizes that you're becoming addicted, she'll get used to your manic laughter.