Lowering Services
We have lowered hundreds of motorcycles for lots of reasons. A properly lowered bike gives you safety and confidence. We tell people, “Buy the bike of your dreams, we can make it fit you, so don’t settle on a bike you don’t want just because your toes touch at the dealership!"
Why? Don't ask us. We ask you!
Are you shorter than your current or dream bike? You aren’t alone. We have lowered hundreds of bikes for riders just like you.
Are you getting a little older and don’t feel you have the leg strength to hold up your bike if it starts to lean a bit too much?
Are you unable to back up with confidence on gravel?
Do you ride off-trail fairly often and find the ground is uneven when you go to put your feet down? Some riders realize they need to be 6’5” tall to touch the ground comfortably on a GS1200!
Whatever the reason, come in and see us about lowering your bike. We tell people “Don’t wait until your home is robbed before you buy an alarm!” The price we charge to properly lower a bike is often cheaper than the bodywork required to fix just one tip over at low speed.
Lowering links: we avoid them like the plague
We use lowering links in very rare situations and after we have measured the s%!# out of them and they pass our engineering seal of approval. Typically, we avoid them like the plague.
Lower links are an aftermarket set of link plates that swing the tire up without moving the shock. This lowers the bike, usually ½" or 1". They may sound like an easy solution to lower your bike, but they're not, and here's why...
The engineers at Honda, Yamaha, BMW, etc., spend a tremendous amount of time to ensure when your rear shock bottoms after a big bump fully loaded, that the rear tire doesn’t hit anything under your rear inner fender. Poke your head up in there and have a look. The inner fender area has a smooth rounded profile that exactly matches your tire profile. Why? Because your tire gets crazy close at full bottom!
Do you think the link manufacturers who offer ½", 1" or 2" lowering links have checked every bike and tire combination? No way.
The shock has a bump rubber designed to decelerate the wheel just before it contacts anything on the bike. When components are swapped in this critical area, the tire can hit the battery box, the regulator/rectifier, or whatever else used to be safely out of the way, and in the worst-case scenario lock up the rear tire at whatever speed you happen to be riding.
The other concern is the lazy option of just lowering the back of the bike an inch or so will dramatically affect the handling and the weight distribution of the bike if the front has not been lowered to match.
We lower bikes properly!
Why lower both ends and not just the back?
Lowering just the back will eliminate significant weight off the front tire and will change the rake, trail, wheelbase, and safe handling of the bike.
Can you feel it when you put a trailer on the back of your car or truck? Of course, you can! The headlight aim is crazy high, the nose or hood feels high, there is a strange lack of resistance and confidence in the steering wheel, and in fast corners, it feels like the front tires might lose grip and slide away. This is exactly the same sensation with your bike when you only lower the rear. However, on a bike, lowering the rear only will add a bunch of unwanted rake and trail to the steering, drastically reducing the steering effect from the handlebars and is dangerous at best!
We go inside the fork and shock and shorten them internally. We do the engineering in the rear linkage to determine exactly how much to shorten your shock, and we match this to the fork length reduction. When done the bike is invisibly, almost imperceptibly, lower without the forks sticking way out of the triple clamps or any unwanted aftermarket parts out back.
We always begin our lowering appointments by measuring the rider's sag so we can correct the bike's handling while we lower it. Often it will handle and perform much better after we lower it custom for you!
Each lowering is specialized for each rider. Our most common lowering jobs are typically between 1/2” and 1+3/4”. Although, we have gone as much as 4” lower in special situations when the bike is tall enough to give us the suspension travel to do it. Typically, off-road MX style bikes, or BMW GS1200s, have lots of travel for us to play with.
What else is done?
When the bike is sitting lower, the side stand no longer has the mechanical advantage as the bike isn’t leaning over as much. We need to shorten your side stand after your custom lowering job to keep the lean angle safe for your stand.
Optional is for us to also shorten the centre stand. This adds cost of course and extends the job another couple of days as our centre stands get welded offsite and then returned to us for painting and refitting.
You get a full suspension service, front and rear, included with the lowering.
Your bill for a full lowering is not much more than if you came to us for a front and rear suspension service with removal and reinstallation of the forks and shock!
How much does it cost?
It depends on a few things...
The amount of bodywork on the bike can increase the time it takes to reach the shocks. For example, a BMW K1600 takes us hours to get the front and rear shock out, whereas a GSXR 600 shock and forks can be in our hands in 25 minutes.
How low are we going? An average weight rider who only needs a 1/2" lower can often expect to use the OEM springs, this can save several hundred dollars. A heavier or lighter rider who wants a 2" lower will almost always need different springs, the price goes up.
If the bike uses conventional forks up front and a shock out back, that is cheaper than a BMW with a tele lever front end. Does the shock have standard preload adjustment or electronic adjustment? The answer to this affects the price. Are the shocks even serviceable? Sometimes we need to completely replace the shock with a much better unit from one of our suppliers due to ultra-low-quality OEM suspenders. This will improve the ride and performance but will raise the price as well.
Basically, we have lowered bikes for as low as $800-900 to as high as $2400 (plus tax) depending on the bike, rider weight, amount we are lowering, centre stand, shock purchase, etc.
Contact us for an estimate.
Is that an estimate or a quote?
We use the word estimate. We often cannot see how rusty or dirty your bike is over the phone, nor can we know if you have welded a light bar to your triple clamp bolts, or your forks are bent from a crash, etc. We can only give you an accurate quote at the halfway point of the job. Otherwise, an accurate careful estimate, based on our knowledge and years of experience, is what we will offer you on the job.