Best Motorcycles for Smaller Riders: Seat Heights Under 30 Inches

SMALL? You have got to be kidding. Some of these bikes are real porkers. 600+ pound bikes are not small. Also, what about the Royal Enfield Meteor?

In my opinion, the perfect examples of PERFECT LOOKING bikes, I have to say are: Triumph Bonneville T100 and the Indian Scout 60 (in black or red, not that horrid color shown here).

At 62, and being a new rider with only 2 years experience, I will likely upgrade from my Kawasaki Z400 to either a Kawasaki Z650 RS, or Triumph Trident. Living in Ontario, Canada, the insurance is too outrageously high for a bigger bike. I really wish the Bonneville would be released as a 500-650. I just don’t need anything bigger, anyhow.

As a height challenged rider, I appreciate your efforts here. When I was first introduced to off-road riding, I was hooked. Unfortunately most dual sport and adventure bike manufacturers believe 33” is a good seat height and those manufactures that do go lower do so at the expense of travel and or ground clearance. I feel that they’re missing a large market of short riders by not offering lower seat height without travel limitations and instead subframe engineering and seat changes.

Some sport-tourers offer seat height adjustments and lower seat options. But there are some nice bikes in this list.

I have a 29″ inseam at 5′ 6″ on a good day. I got the 1100 Rebel and find the seat height perfect for all around usability (no scraping of hard parts on turns). Just loose the massive sausage pipe and you got a good bike!

None of them.
The Ryker int a motorcycle.
Foot forward controls are no good for my little legs and arms.
You’re missing the point.
A rephrase of your title will need lots of work.
I wouldn’t buy new anyway because I cannot accept electronics doing the thinking for me.
I will stick with the 14 rides I already have.

Good article but I would have included the Honda cb500x. It’s a great all around bike. Part adventure part street and highly affordable.

Can’t wait for lists of other heights. How about a list of bikes for short riders who do NOT want cruiser style? Bonneville seems to be the only one here.

And don’t confuse short riders with wanting “small, affordable” or anything else.
I have 29″ inseam, don’t like forward pegs and controls, don’t care about weight or price…only one thing – seat height.

Most of the bikes on this list are just too heavy for a smaller rider. I have said this in columns like this one for years. All the manufactures are ignoring an entire market segment of women riders, as well as smaller statured men by insisting on 32-inch-tall seats as their standard. Along with tail sections with more clearance than suspension travel just for style. I modified my wife’s GSX-SF 1000 Suzuki for sport touring, six years before Suzuki did, and at 5′ 6″ 125 pounds she can handle it quite well.

Mostly a collection of bloated, overweight, and redundant cruisers. Only six iterations of the Indian Scout?

Speaking of Scouts, I test rode one when they were introduced (2015?). The seat height was great – with my 28″ inseam I was comfortably flat-footed. However, the reach to the forward controls was so great I had to stretch to reach them. I felt unsafe and uncomfortable. Seat height is NOT the only criterion that should be used to evaluate motorcycle for “smaller riders”

Once a person gets comfortable riding, seat height isn’t much of a problem. I ride a CB1000r with a 32″ seat height at only 5’5″. I hang a cheek off the seat and throw one foot on the ground. It helps that the seat is pretty narrow.

What happened to Royal Enfield?

I agree with some of the posters. As we age, weight becomes just as important as seat height. I’ve been riding a Sportster forever because I’m vertically challenged, but now the 500 lbs. are feeling kind of heavy. Looking forward to the follow-up post.