Here was my/our experience. At 47 my better half decided she was tired of looking at the back of my helmet. We decided to get her trained and on a machine, one with not too much power, low seat, and not one she would hate to drop. She is 5'-5" but has a short inseam. Found a 1982 Yamaha Vision 550 that was a real rat bike but I test rode it and for 400 bucks it seemed like a good learner bike. The weekend she went out of town to take the MSF course with one of our young nephews, I decided to change the oil in her learner bike. It was black, thick, and too much. Oh well, filled it with some good stuff to proper level and hit the starter and BANG! Sprag starter clutch exploded. By time she came home on Sunday after passing the course I had parts all over the work bench. No Bueno!
One thing the instructors impressed on her or any newbie rider is get out there and ride every day, even a week can remove much of the new training. The 550 was going to be down for a while....so what to do?? On the following Tuesday we drove 80 miles to the nearest dealer and she looked at all of the 2002 models available from 5 brands. She dislike cruisers, probably my bad influence riding sport machines since we met, but she did like the then new Buell Blast! (And my middle name is Buel!) A brand new one followed us home.
They really nailed a few things on that bike for new and female riders...she loved it and we would ride every morning before I went to work. That first summer we started taking day, then weekend trips. By the next spring riding season we both could see she had outgrown it's lack of power, and we started shopping for her next ride. By chance, on a ride vacation in N. CA where we hauled the bikes to Eureka and traveled some of the awesome roads including Cape Mendocino and CA-36 to Weaverville...the Buell's valve train failed. When we got it back to the dealership we had a horrible experience where they improperly 'repaired' it under warranty, and the next time it was ridden it blew oil all over the rea tire. We almost owned that dealership.
Got to deal with their sales manager who has become a good friend now, and they gave us full purchase price as trade in on anything they sold, plus only charged us 50.00 over invoice for a brand new 2003 Suzuki SV-650. That...was a fabulous machine. It was the naked not S version as she has short arms and injured her wrists so any undue pressure was not good. She loved that bike, we did some great road trips, plenty of power, windshield and soft bags make it a little tourer. She even took her first track day on it and did several of those over the years.
Alas, June of 2005 our daughter was riding her moms bike, being a 2 year licensed rider now herself, along with me and some friends on a charity poker run. I was going to build her a custom bike that year. She went off the road and ended up passing away in my arms from Anaphylaxis. My wife could not look at another SV as an option. So in 2006 my wife decided to keep riding and Kawi had just released the new Ninja 650R, upright riding, some fairings, nice little parallel twin. We had a local dealer now who made us a smoking deal, and we are a Kawi family anyway.
I had lowered her SV with links and forks dropped in triples as well as a lower seat so she could just barley flat foot at a stop, pretty important confidence booster. Got a Rich's custom seat made for the Ninja, but the unique shock layout made it only possible to drop it by about 3/4". The combo was enough to almost get her FF, but she also had much more experience by then so it was not a big deal. We did many more road trips and a she did a few more track days on it. I bought a second one, a 2008 and made a roadster out of it.
After 12 years riding her own she decided the crazy drivers made her too nervous, so she hung up her leathers but continued to ride mostly off road with our TW-200's for a few years. She quit riding all together in 2017 at retirement age as she fears getting hurt. Over the years I have lowered a half dozen machines for shorter riders, but none of them rode hard enough for the lessening of performance to be an issue. Thicker soles on the shoes is another trick but may require customizing the foot controls.
Overall, I am so proud of her accomplishments. She fell over at slow speeds a few times but always got back in the saddle. Our riding together helped us both heal and drew us even closer. We have some epic memories on 2 wheels. She actually talked about getting her own ride 10 years earlier but I was nervous and afraid of it being too dangerous. The second time I realized more that life is about enjoying experiences and mitigating the hazards through gear and training, but who was I to sway her away from something I enjoyed so much! Our grand daughter became a rider at 18 and we gave her and her step mother the Ninja 650. Now our great-granddaughter Lucy is sizing it up for the future...
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