Bought a K75 thanks for your help! Now..

[downhillhunter]

Worked out a deal on a '92 K75, Thanks much in part to the kindness and advice from the people on this board!!

I rode (650miles) it home for my wife and I am impressed with this bike!

My wife has 'penguin' legs, so now the next thing is to lower it as much as possible:

1. Is there a lower seat than the BMW low seat version?

2. Is there a 'bicycle' style saddle that's low and comfortable?

3. What's a good after market lowered shock?

4. And finally, what would you recommend for a 'low profile' tire?

5. And if I put a low profile on the rear, do I have to change the front to L/P
as well?

Again,

Thanks for your help.

Downhill Hunter

[wndsrfr]

I'm happy with the Progressive 420 short shock, which is 3/4" shorter than stock. I weigh 155 and was bottoming the first one which had the "light" spring on it--they exchanged it for the "heavy" spring and it's fine for me now. I slipped the fork tubes up 'til they touched the handlebars, which was almost exactly 3/4 inch as well and the handling is much better than it was stock--easier to flick the bike into turns with the c.g. down closer to the centerline of the axles. I've no experience with lower profile tires, but know that they'll make the speedo even more optimistic--like maybe 63 indicated is actually 55......

Rock on!

[downhillhunter]

Thanks Wndsrfr!

I have had an email into Progressive and Works since Monday, but no reply from them. I guess I'll have to call them.

I'm surprised that at only 3/4" lower, you were bottoming out.

Do you mean the tire was rubbing? Or were you hitting the limit of the shock travel?

I'm getting conflicting info on low profile tires. Here's what I'm told:

About the max that I can expect to reduce the seat height by going to a low profile tire is about 3/32"!

Hardly worth the trouble and expense! I do want to double check that because it doesn't seem right to me.

At any rate thanks for sharing your experience.

Downhill Hunter

[wndsrfr]

The bottoming was the spring/shock hitting the limit of its travel on compression when I crossed a deep dip at speed. That was with the "light" spring. With the "heavy" spring set at detent #2 (out of 4) I'm not bottoming. (Guess I need to go faster?) Today I put on 100 miles on back roads--secondary "farm" roads with no stripe on them--some of which are very choppy where old culverts have sagged & no bottoming at speeds of 60-80 or so indicated. I don't think there's a chance of the tire hitting the underside of the fender--I expect others have more knowledge about that possibility.

I got my Progressive rear shock via Forever Endeavor Cycles, not directly from Progressive. Try them if you don't get a call back from the factory....

I'm using Metzler ME880 tires 100/90-18 on front and 140/80-17 on rear and am quite happy with them, but then again, I'm not a seasoned rider even close to many on this board.....check out their threads on tire topics for lots of opinions. I got my tires mailordered via Ron Ayers Motorsports in NC--was clearly the best deal that I could find at the time.

[downhillhunter]

Thanks, Wndsrfr!

Your thoughts and advice are very valuable!

I'm going to call Progressive or Forever Endeavor Cycles this PM.

Do you have any feel for how much the 140/80s lowered the frame?

One of Hagon's shocks for the K75 can be lowered as much as 50mm (1.95") and they seem to think that they would work on the bike. That's a lot and besides really changing the geometry of the bike, I'm a little concerned about
clearance.

However, in order to ride this bike comfortably we need to shorten it as much as safely possible.

So we're looking at shock, seat and tire.

Thanks for your help

Downhill Hunter