Lower the front to match the lowered rear...WHY??

[mastrind]

ok....I kind of understand why one would need to lower the front when one lowers the rear.....but I'm having a tough time explaining it to other people....I know it's got to do with the geometry of the bike and altering certain things because the rear has been lowered, but can someone explain this in a bit greater detail??

I looked through most of the posts dealing with lowering and most simply discuss dogbones....thanx guys....

the reason I'm asking is because I'm selling some stuff on ebay that lowers the GS.....people are asking questions, and I don't want to spread mis-information...

[cummuterguy]

well, if you were to lower the rear of the bike and not the front, you would change the 'rake' of the front suspension. It would be a bit more stable going in a straight line, but less nimble and harder to corner.  

It's basically the same thing as changing the caster angles in a car.

for a buyer that only wants to cruise or tour, it would not be a bad thing. But for someone that plans to ride her hard on the corners, it would sacrifice a bit.

[Kzin]

When you lower the rear and not the front, it changes the steering head angle.  The rake and trail of the bike.  The changes are not neccesarily bad.  I lowered my SV by 1 3/4 inches for my wife to ride it with some custom dogbones, and raised the forks by 5mm.  The front isn't matched to the rear and could go down a bit more, but after riding it I found it to be more stable at speeds without too much change in turn in for street riding.