Once again, I am looking to the bike world guru's for some advice. My daughter will turn 18 in July of 09. She is a senior in high school right now and I am looking for a bike to give her as a gift for her graduation in June. Not looking for an unreasonably big bike, just one that she can ride with me and the wife on short local rides and be able to keep up. I love spending time with her and it kills me to leave on rides with the wife and have to leave her at home.
My problem is this, she is only about 5' tall at best. She is slim built but very short. I am afraid that I will not be able to find a decent bike that she can be comfortable on. She has some experience riding, but not alot.
If anyone has any suggestions, I'm open to them. I'll be taking her to the local Yami dealer today and start looking around but if anyone knows of anything else I should be looking at, please let me know. Thanks.

has she taken a riders ed. course?

My wife is around the same height and has been looking for bikes that would fit her. In looking around she came across this web site loaded with info that has helped her out alot. This particular page lists seat heights for many '08 models and the rest of the site has lots of relevent content.

http://www.vtwinmama.com/motorcycle_seat_heights.htm

Good luck in your search, and I'm sure that she will love what ever you get.

Hey Chief, i would recommend looking at the v-stars. If you lower it and put on an aftermarket seat you can get the seat height to 24". That is what we did with my wifes v-star, This year they are making a 900cc also. If she does not have any or little riding experiance I would also recommend the MSF course. Well worth the price. Ride safe and Happy New Bike Hunting.

I had a V-Star 650 that I lowered (Julio slam FREE MOD)and added a Hollywood solo seat on it and the seat height was only 24" I had to put forwards on it and was never comfortable for me because I'm 6'. My wife is 5'3" and she had no problem sitting on it and said it seemed too short to her. But, alas she did not want to ride it I really liked that bike!
Steven

You don't want to get her to small(CC wise) of a bike that she will quickly outgrow and tire of. I would say look at the various 650 / 750 cruisers. V star, Aero, that type of bike. Are you trying to surprise her with it or can you take her around to dealers and let her test sit?

Hey Chief
Trying to talk my daughter into going with a Vstar 650 for her first bike, but she's got her mind set on a VRod. Your daughter sounds like she's built about like mine, only about 100 years younger.
Here's a link to a nice 650. Not for sale but sure looks cool.

http://forums.delphiforums.com/ultrastar/messages?msg=1526.1

Oldest daughter took the safety course and got an 04' V-Star 1100. She's tall so fitment wasn't a problem. But it was comical (silently) watching her continually snub it at first. Only took her a month to get the hang of it. Now we're riding partners. Good luck to her finding just the right bike.

GP

Chief we bought my neice her first bike in agust it's a suzuki s40 boulevard 650cc thumper it's very light and rides great it carried me down the freeway at 80 mph and i'm 6 ft. and 215 lbs. We got it for her mid august and now she has about 3500 miles on it !

750 Shadows are great all around bikes , and reasonable. 750 Magna's are as well , but they are more powerful. 800 Marauders are also good , fairly priced bikes. Most modern bikes can be lowered somehow , or have custom seats that are lower. Just a thought. BB