Quote:
Originally Posted by Koala
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Her fit on that GSX-R is exactly like mine on the same bike. Balls of both feet down.
BTW, she didn't have the suspension "softened." She reduced the preload and that's not the same thing. "Softer" means different spring rates. And to be clear, preload should not be driven by height, but by rider weight. As it happens she's also light, so the move was the right one... but the purpose is not to change the height of the seat. That's a side effect. The whole point is to keep the suspension in its working range (the middle third) most of the time.
My track bike, stock, has a much higher and wider seat. With one tiptoe down (not even solid support, just touching) the other foot is dangling. So I did a LOT of mods to the seat.
The seat on my GSX-R is narrow at the front, and the stock foam is also beveled so the top of the seat near the tank is only about 4 inches wide or so. This makes a huge difference, because it's not just seat height that matters: If you have to spread your legs far apart your effective inseam goes way down. The more vertical your leg can be, the better.
Here's what I've done to the R-6 seat:
1) Dremeled the seat pan to be as narrow as possible up near the tank. The pan is now a bit narrower than the subframe.
2) Removed the seat foam and replaced it with a superbike foam pad (the foam that they sell for superbike tail race fairings, about half an inch thick).
3) Trimmed and beveled the foam to make it narrower up near the tank.
This has made the bike much easier to deal with in the real world and it has zero impact on the way it rides.
My $0.02 on all the gymnastics of leaping onto the bike, etc... these are all compromises forced by extreme circumstance. If you have to, you have to... but it's all far from ideal. I'd go with seat mods and gear selection first, every time.