Key Motorcycle Choice Metric

While at my local Kawasaki dealership looking at the bike I got, I also sat on one of the other candidates: The KLR 650, an adventure touring bike that arguably answered better to certain characteristics I sought in that it's more configured toward carrying luggage, etc. for touring.

But the KLR 650 has a seat height of 33 inches plus, and I have a 32 inch inseam. So, impossible to flat-foot it on both sides at stops. Even at kickstand lean angle, my toes barely touched the floor. At my age and with my knee problems, not ideal. The time would almost certainly come when I'd roll to a stop, lean the bike over to put my left foot down, and just go on over.

The Royal Enfield Himalayan 450, which had been my target bike, has a slightly, but not much, lower seat height, adjustable from 31.5 to 32.5 inches.

The Eliminator has a seat height of 28.5 inches.

These seem like small differences just looking at the numbers, but it's the difference between stability and instability for a rider of my height/inseam at stops (or,  in off-road or soft-sand-road riding, when needing to get a foot down for a controlled-skid turn).

My other two bikes range from 28.7 inches for the Lifan KP-Mini 150 to 30.7 inches for the Italica Bulldog 150. On the Lifan, I can easily flat-foot it; on the Bulldog, not really ...

... but a factor to co-consider is weight. the Mini and Bulldog are much lighter bikes, coming in at between 220 and 250 pounds, wet. The Eliminator is next up that scale at 330 pounds. The KLR and the Himalayan, 400 pounds plus. An extra 100+ pounds would make a big difference coming to rest with the support of an unreliable knee.

So that turned out to be a big equation for me: If I'm going to ride a tall bike, it also needs to be a light bike, which probably means, at most, a 250cc air-cooled job. And those don't produce quite the power/speed I want for longer rides that entail at least some freeway travel.

I've got more than 200 miles on the Eliminator now and am starting to get comfortable with it. In addition to higher speed potential, it also has taller tires (18" front/16" rear vs. e.g. the Mini's 12" pairing). That sounded scarier to me, but the taller tires handle bumps and potholes a lot better and feel a lot more stable. The rear tire has yet to break loose on the sand roads I ride (including the cow path I live on ... but if it does, that lower seat height will make easier for me to get a foot down.