Lowering the Front End

[BockinBboy]

Alright guys, here's the scoop:

I picked up some lowering links and a shortened kickstand from Steezin, and the install went smoothly despite the heat and my bike is much more inline with my 29" inseam.  Now its time to lower the front end to match, and ideally, I want to move the forks up in the triple clamp about an inch so I can return it to stock height easily later, however, the handlebars only allow for about 1/4" as is.  My arms are short anyways so it wouldn't be a big deal to add risers, but I wanted to see what other options there might be.  I don't want to add clip-ons - I'm just not a fan with my short arms.

A buddy of mine once added another set of bar clamps to raise the bars about an inch rather than actual risers, because they were cheaper to be had at the time and worked just as well.  Risers are like $30 new plus ship - can't find 'used', actual clamps are half that used.  Would that work here? Where can I get my hands on some?

Of course, if anyone has a simple solution lying around for me that can be had for cheap, I'm open for negotiations 

- Bboy

[noiseguy]

$30 sounds pretty reasonable. I wouldn't mess with a 1/2 baked solution over saving a few dollars here...  and it would cost more in time and effort to fabricate anything reasonable for this. 

[gsJack]

You can slide the front forks up about 1" max before the wipers hit the lower triple at full compression:

http://gstwins.com/gsboard/index.php?topic=40074.msg450638#msg450638

I put the GenMar risers on my 97 GS and then transferred them to my current 02 GS.  I put the left over set of clamps from the 02 on the 97 like shown in the Wiki as junkyard risers.  That's all you need to raise the forks about an inch.

[noiseguy]

There you go... that's the cheap solution:



http://wiki.gstwins.com/index.php?n=Upgrades.HandlebarRisers

[BockinBboy]

Yep.  That's exactly what my buddy had goin on.  Just didn't know how well it worked out.  This makes little sense though - I can buy a full triple tree with the clamps for less than I can buy a set of risers... I even saw one tree with risers on it.   

- Bboy