Pan European height

[Andy Sut]

Hi

I recently purchased a st1300 pan European. Being only 5'6"tall. I am finding the bike still too high despite lowering the seat and rear shock to it's lowest setting. Does anyone know of another way to make it slightly lower. Cheers Andy 

[husoi]

The only way I know of is lowering the frame the seat locks into at the front.

That allows the back of the seat to slot onto the lower setting 

[RideWithStyles]

Ahhh husoi- Similar to my gsf, only the other way it has stepped rubber feet and a metal stepped plate attached to the seat you switch around to lower or raise it.

Andy I’ll presume you just adjusted the preload And not any other mechanical devices or settings?
to lower like that just because your shorter isn’t the way, That’s not what primarily for If that is what you have done? Even if you were to say your weight is 50-60kg let alone before adding luggage and/or a pillion , definitely not ideal. 

What you would have done is taken away what suspension travel you did have and made it more like a hard tail/chopper -the bike will be sat on its arse, feel like a barge, vague to handle, crashy at the rear etc.

the suspension setting will most likely not be correct or certain not optimal for it’s designed use now, messed with the geometry, wearing the rear tyre and suspension out faster etc.

 

some shock fittings have a longer threaded shaft attached to the top of the shock, shims or a variable collet to switch around that can be adjusted for such a thing.

If the shock isn’t directly connected to the swing arm but through link bars (cantilever) then to change them to shorter ones is the better way to go, it isn’t perfect but way better than just said first hand.
If you do this you’ll more than likely have to change (raise) the fork position in the clamps roughly the same amount you lower to get the balance of the bike even, unless you want to be riding a pan chopper.

 

just remember to reset you preload adjuster to std.