I was looking at (for) a 230S and was wondering about the seat height for someone 5'4? Is it still a little tall and if so can you lower them at all? (Different link perhaps?)

For those that have them, is the suspension able to be set soft enough so it compresses under 140lbs rider?

I cant find one locally yet to even sit on but I know the normal 300 is too high for me (like one foot flat the other 4" off the ground (cant tippy tow it).
Thanks in advance!!

 

Many people with shorter legs get efficient at stopping to one side and flat footing that one side. Lowering the bike will make it handle crappier...but is sometimes necessary.

 

Lowering only the rear relaxes the fork angle and creates more front wheel trail like a dirt bike. So the bike steers slower than the steeper fork angle of a street bike. Lowering the front along with the rear retains more responsive handling characteristics.

I'm 5'5" so along with lowering the rear, I also lowered the front of mine by raising the fork in the triple and installing lightweight alloy clip on bars directly onto the exposed tops of the fork tubes.



With an unsprumg seat height of only 30 inches, the bike corners superb with such a low center of gravity of both bike and rider.

 

Tooter - looks really good. How did you go about dropping the rear a little extra? Thanks

 

I spun the rear shock lockrings until they just touched the uncompressed shock spring. I checked it by tipping the bike up on the kickstand so the rear wheel is completely off the ground and the rear suspension is fully extended.

When I'm sitting on the bike the seat height is well under 30 inches. I'm under 140 pounds so it works great for me.

 

Tooter, why not start with a lower seat height bike to begin with? If you get a bike that's tall for ample ground clearance and suspension travel, and then eliminate both of those attributes, then what's the point of using the KLX over a small cruiser or standard?

 

There is a big reason...weight.

A comparable bike like a 2023 Honda Rebel 300 weighs 364 pounds,
while my KLX300 weighs only 292 pounds... or 72 pounds less.

Me riding a Honda Rebel 300 would perform the same as me riding my KLX300 and weighing 210 pounds!

 

Well, that's not certain because power to weight isn't that simple. A Subaru WRX and KLX250 have the same power to weight ratio for example, but the WRX is much quicker.

72 pounds really isn't that big of a deal when the center of gravity is so low. The Rebel weighs more, but it's even lower than your lowered KLX is. I mean this in an encouraging way, that if you haven't tried any before, go test ride a cruiser and see for yourself that the weight is not an issue. A Rebel 300 is still a light motorcycle in the spectrum of motorcycles too, and even much heavier cruisers are easier to low-speed maneuver than my KLX in my experience. Don't let the weight on a spec sheet talk you out of a bike. I really depends on the whole package.

 

True, it is 3 ihches lower.
However mine is already plenty low as I can flatfoot both feet with my knees bent. The Rebel 300 does claim 2 more horsepower so I'm sure that at least compensates some for the extra 72 pounds. I also like the more upright riding position of the KLX, especially with the really low, narrow clip on bars that are close to me. Overall bike width is only 28 inches which makes for easy lanesplitting.

You have to reach a lot farther forward with cruiser bars. I rode a Honda Rebel 250 Cruiser and didn't like the riding position one bit. It was a heavy wide clunky pig.

Bikes are extremely personal. That's why there are so many different kinds to match all of our different tastes.

 

I agree that we all have different tastes and uses, and that's why so many classes of bike exist, but understand this is a matter of perspective as well. If a Rebel 250 is very heavy to you, then you probably haven't experience a very broad range of motorcycles. When your perspective changes through increased variety in experiences, that's when you realize that the Rebel 250 that felt heavy to you before now feels like nothing.

Also I saw in the other thread that you only ride 50 mph. How do you even know that your KLX handles so well as you think it does then if you're never exercising the bike?