[Dupo]

Actually, i ride a hard tail honda spirit. I can honestly say, i think i have better control over the bike with it this way. I can feel every little thing in the road surface and to me, it feels like it corners and handles much better. I dropped my bike about 6" in the rear and have the tire up into the fender. I love the hard tail on my bike. I have a bad back, but still refuse to give it up lol.

As for the seat I am not sure what you are asking when you put "are there options out there to lower the height of the seat so that im not altering the oem seat". There arent much options for lowering without altering. The best thing to do, buy a cheapo used seat off ebay. Then remove the covering and take sand paper (yes sandpaper) and sand the seat down to what you want. OEM foam will shape and sand down very easily with sandpaper. If you need to chop it down considerably, use an electric turkey knife. Cuts like butter. Recover with marine grade vinyl, apply tacky spray to hold it in place and use a hi powered staple gun to reattach the vinyl to the plastic seat pan (or self tapping screws for metal). I've done two seats for my shadow this way. I ride with a custom seat that i lowered to 2" thickness. Love it.