My wife has a Yamaha XT250 that she loves, mainly because she can touch the ground with it's 32" seat height. However it maxes out about 67-68 mph on the rev limiter and is a heavy pig in the dirt. I want to upgrade her to a 350, either KTM, or maybe a Beta. The KTM seat is 37.9" on the KTM vs 37.0" on the Beta. (The Husky is listed at 38.5" so that's probably out). Any experience with lowering links and lowering ? She's not going to be doing any supercross triples but I'd like to keep it as low as possible and plush without fucking up the geometry.
Any thoughts or experience doing this ? Thanks !
I'm 5'6". My wife is 5'4". The last five bikes I've owned have all been lowered. All internal suspension work, except for Kouba links on her crf250x. People say the Kouba link fucks up the geometry, but neither she, nor I could ever tell. I can notice a difference with revalving and clicker changes, but other than that I ride what I've got. I'm a trail rider not a moto pro who will notice a difference in engine mounts. "I'd say" get her a good bike, shorten and revalve the suspension (for her riding), and enjoy. Any new(er) 350 with revalved suspension will be 1000x better and more fun than her XT250.
Any decent suspension shop should be able to help with that. When lowering the suspension, it'll have to be resprung if you're not doing a lowering link. lowering the forks will always require different springs.
Looking for different opinions mainly because I had my 500excf lowered 2'' by a guy who's retired now, and honestly I'm not that happy with it. Whatever I wind up getting my wife (Looking like 350excf) will need to go more than 2" lower. Granted she won't be pounding through any desert whoops or jumping, but plush with 1/2 way decent bottoming resistance is the main goal. And obviously not doing anything weird at high speed on the road.
I’d go with the KTM , get a lower seat and have the suspension lowered internally. You can always get her lower bars if she doesn’t like how the seat changes the relationship to them. Not sure what years you’re looking at, but the newer EXCF’s do not come with a progressive spring. That’s something you will want to do to the bike as well.
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The main concern is her being able to easily reach the ground when stopped. If only her XT250 was a 500, weighed 30 pounds less and could easily cruise at 70mph... I wish they still made these 😄 (With a button lol)
Agree! I have had a couple xt500’s great bikes!
Lowering links: must reset sag, must be properly resprung for extra leverage otherwise bike will probably wallow/bottom easily/understeer and have you posting on a forum how every lowering link is crap, most people who say lowering links f*up the suspension probably didn't know how to set sag in the first place (in my experience 9 out of 10 riders of all body weight don't set sag from the factory let alone weight change or with a lowering link), they didn't read the instructions about going up in spring rate, AND.... some bikes simply don't behave well with lowering links whether it was a 6mm or 50mm.
Internal lowering: you lose the amount of travel the bike is lowered by, highly recommended to get a revalve, costs a lot more, doesn't f* up the handling as easily as a link so you can ride the bike as-is for years and years whether the rider is 120 pounds or 220 pounds.
Seat shaving: your bum and hamstrings may not like the seat pan or frame rail after a long ride.
Full disclosure: I own YamaLink and Kouba Link.
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