Protecting Your Rear
Protecting Your Rear
Assorted Cushions to Keep Derrieres From Facing the Harsh Realities of Travel
What makes a comfortable motorcycle seat? Everyone has an answer. Either it takes softer foam or firmer foam or springs or air cushions or water cushions or cloth covers or sheepskin covers or a stepped seat or a backrest or armrests or a narrower seat or a wider seat or a longer seat or a shorter seat. It may be all of the above, some of the above or none of the above, but it is also what we haven't got.
Most new motorcycles are equipped with naugahyde-covered torture devices thought up by pseudo-sadists, or so it would seem after a 500 mi. ride. Engineers have provided features we aren't even sure we want, but they haven't come up with a universally comfortable motorcycle seat.
Considering all the permutat~ons possi ble. it's surprising that the standard Jap anese or European motorcycle has always come with essentially the same kind of seat, a foam filled, naugahyde covered block, sometimes with a mild rise at the rear section and made in slightly varying lengths and widths.
Harley-Davidson. of course, has always marched to a different drummer and seen fit to be more inventive in seat design. It may be the only part of the motorcycle with which Harley-Davidson has been in ventive but you've got to give them some credit. Most famous of the Harley seats has been the solo saddle shaped the same as the standard John Deere tractor seat, but with upholstery and a spring underneath it that provides suspension.
Harley's seats for two people have been, in the past. less satisfactory. but the latest double seat from Harley has some of the shape of the solo saddle plus the benefit of a sprung baseplate. Bravo for Harley.
As motorcycles have become better able to travel long distances, more people have used them for touring and more people have discovered the faults of the standard motorcycle seats. There is some good in that. As more people suffer, more minds are put to work trying to invent the univer sally comfortable motorcycle seat. Their efforts are welcome.
Before getting into the possible choices of seats and cushions, consider the per mutations of the human body. If no two human faces are exactly alike, then it should follow that no two ahhh . . are exactly the same. So why should one seat be considered comfortable by all people?
A little story here. When Suzuki introduced their GS750 to the motorcycle press, the test riders were flown to Montana where they were allowed to ride a collection of new Suzukis through the mountains of the Northwest. Wonderful time. But each of the motorcycles had a different seat and the test riders were asked to evaluate the seats, letting Suzuki know which was the most comfortable seat. It turns oüt the seat the Cycle World rider found most comfortable wasn’t the seat picked by the majority. The moral of the story is that you should try out any seat you are thinking of buying, before you buy it. What may be comfortable for us may not be comfortable for you.
If you’re unhappy with your present seat, there are four venues to consider. One, you can replace your seat with a different seat. There are plenty of businesses offering replacement seats. Two, you can add some sort of cushion to your present seat. There are air cushions, water cushions, and sheepskin covers. Three, you can have your seat rebuilt by a competent upholsterer who can change the shape and firmness of your present seat. Four, you can suffer.
Replacement seats are available in several styles, some of them offering more style than comfort. Chopper owners have been buying custom seats longer than touring riders, so there are a lot of businesses making custom chopper seats. While the chopper seats are designed for style rather than comfort, there is benefit in the existence of chopper seat companies. It means there are businesses capable of making seats, now that there’s a growing market for custom touring seats. Turns out the chopper seat guys have taken up making custom touring seats.
While just about anything would be an improvement over some stock motorcycle seats, not all custom seats will please all riders. There are different shapes and styles of custom seats, from the narrow, exaggerated chopper models to the big double bucket styles. Touring riders, generally, are buying the large bucket-style seats. Some have two buckets, some just have a bucket in front and a small flat area in back and offer little comfort for a passenger. Actually, the bucket-type seats are shaped like an old tractor seat, but with padding.
Not all the buckets are shaped the same. Some are wider than others, some have softer foam than others, some are tilted at different angles than others.
Another approach to custom seats is the Hardin Solo Saddle. Instead of making a reshaped full-length seat, the Hardin seat is a solo saddle, much like Harley’s traditional solo saddle. It’s possible to mount two solo saddles on a motorcycle, one behind the other. Some people have mounted the Hardin seats with springs or spring-shocks from small motorcycles, to get more of the Harley-feel.
While custom seats do. in general, offer a more supportive shape and better cushioning, there are a few drawbacks, too. Most of the custom seats have custom stitching through the surface that allows water to seep into the foam if the motorcycle is ridden or parked in the rain. Then when a rider climbs aboard after the soaking. the water will squeeze out through the seams and onto the rider. A solution is to never ride the motorcycle in rain, which can be tough to arrange. An alternative is to keep a plastic cover over the custom seat when it rains, which can be a nuisance, or try to seal the seams, w hich is possible, but not altogether perfect.
Many of the custom saddles are built on the motorcycle's original equipment seat base. That requires you to remove the bike’s seat and send it away until you get the custom seat back. It may be worthwhile, particularly if it can be done at a time when you won’t be riding the bike, but it's another nuisance. Of course, there are seats available which don’t use the original seat base. Some of these use a metal base and some use a plastic base. The plastic base won’t rust but sometimes it’s not as strong as the metal base. Either one, if not properly supported by the frame, can bow under the weight of a rider.
Not all custom seats fit all motorcycles. Custom seats are available for most common touring bikes, but if you want a double bucket-type, you may have to hunt to find one to fit your motorcycle if you ride a bike that's at all unusual. Our latest long-term touring bike is a Yamaha XS750 Special that uses a different seat than the standard XS750 and we've had difficulty finding a double bucket seat to fit it. It's not impossible, it just requires a little more checking around.
I f your stock seat is unbearable but you don't want to replace it, there are other solutions, including special cushions which can be added. Besides strapping a piece of foam or a small pillow on your seat, there are three alternatives available.
Latest cushion we've seen is the Allyn Air Seat. There are two models available, a standard cushion made of 18 gauge vinyl, and a deluxe made of 30 gauge material and slightly larger. Either model has two chambers, a front and back, which are easily inflated in a few breaths. Elastic straps hold the air seats around the standard seat, although it's easier if the seats hinge up. After seeing the brochure announcing the air seat, “the kiss of comfort.” it’s called, there were a number of rude jokes about the appearance of the black vinyl cover, none worth repeating here.
We’ve used the air seat briefly and have mixed feelings about it. It does help isolate the rider and passenger from vibration. It does help cushion, particularly on motorcycles with firm seats, but it also interferes with control of a motorcycle. A rider is sitting an inch or two higher on the air seat, which puts the ground that much further away from a compact rider’s legs, and the rider’s body can move around more in relation to the motorcycle, making it more difficult to control the motorcycle. For around town or short trips, we aren't likely to use the Air Seat, but on a long trip, say more than 500 mi. per day, we’d probably use it, any cushioning being worthwhile on a bike with a hard stock seat.
Another type of cushion is the Wooly Bully, though it has nothing to do with a hairy outlaw. It’s a sheepskin cover which straps around a motorcycle seat with Velcro straps. There are a couple of models available, a standard model big enough just for a rider, and a larger pad to cover an entire seat.
The Wooly Bully is particularly useful in hot weather, wTere the wool allows air to circulate and keeps a rider from sticking to the motorcycle seat. It doesn’t add much cushioning to a seat, and can gradually be compressed nearly flat through regular use. but there is comfort to be gained through the Wooly Bully. The makers claim it isn't supposed to get wet, though a Wooly Bully used by a staff member has held up well despite occasional rainy weather riding.
continued on page 146
continued from page 142
Besides the Wooly Bully, some motorcy clists have made their own sheepskin cov ers or had covers made by upholstery shops. Sheepskin covers aren't a new idea. they were used before motorcycles had swing arms, but they may be more useful today.
Finally, there's the Travel Ease Water Cushion. Somewhat like the Air Seat, the Water Cushion is a vinyl bag which is filled with water and strapped to a seat. It doesn't have the same sculptured contours of the Air Seat, hut it works much the same, has the same benefits and draw hacks.
O ptiori Three, the reconstruction of a stock seat by an upholsterer working to the owner/rider's spec ifications is the most personal of your useful options. (We assume nobody wants to suffer. and that if the stock seat doesn't work for you, you'll want to do something about it.)
The sequence is fairlv simple. First, ride with the stock seat until you know if you like it. and if you don't, what you don't like. That is. too low or too high, shaped wrong, too firm or too soft, whatever the difference between what the factory thought would work for the average rider and what you figure will work for your own body.
Next, find a good shop. The perfect solution here is to find a worker who's an excellent upholsterer and a motorcycle rider and already working with motorcycle seats. He’ll know what material will hold up. and he'll understand w hat you’re talking about and why you want to change the seat, and he’ll know how to shape the foam and the cover and secure the cover to the frame. It’s not hard, that last, but it isn't always like working on easy chairs, so if it’s possible, you're better off not getting a seat with which the upholsterer has served his motorcycle apprenticeship.
Where and how do you find this guy? Word of mouth, usually. Ask your friends if they've had seats redone, and how they liked the work, how it held up. Another good bet is your bike dealer or repair shop. Most shops need to have seats rebuilt or recovered and few of them have men trained in the work. They’ve been in the same market you've been in. so (we hope) they've learned who does good work and who doesn’t. If these techniques fail, visit the upholstery shops in your area, payingspecial attention to the ones working in car tops, boat covers and the like. They wall at least know' about the heavy-duty fabrics and vinyls needed for bike seats, while the man specializing in antique furniture may not.
How do you tell what you want? That’s why you need to have ridden the bike for a while and why it’s good to have a shop familiar with bikes. In the case of the seat show, a raised number done on a Honda XL250 pan and stock foam, the owner is a man with long legs and arms, and a man who has been caught unaware by sudden holes in the trail. He rides long distances, and thus wanted a softer seat with more padding for those blows to the spine. His long legs (and the relatively short wheel travel and low seat height of the XL) allowed a taller seat. The cover was re moved, the foam was sliced horizontally and a two-inch layer of hard foam glued between the stock sections. The raised-but stock-contoured padding was covered with pjain black vinyl and the owner says it's the most comfortable bike seat he's ever been on.
There are options within options. The foam padding, which isn't really rubber by the way, comes in a wide choice of thicknesses and density. A good shop can shape and trim the stuff into any curve or thickness you want. Given the same problem, -say a stepped stock seat with the step in the wrong place, a good shop can raise the lower part for a tall rider, or trim back the higher section for a solo rider who likes the cafe crouch, or . . . whatever you want.
There’s a choice of covers, too. The factories have gone into patterns, with padded strips or quilting, and the aftermarket guys offer fancier still, even twotone if that’s your preference. You can get the same thing from the good shop; a duplicate of the stock cover but different, or less trim, or perhaps a solid color contrasting your bike’s paint.
What’ll it cost? Depends on several things. The upholsterer must be paid for .his time, so it follows that a more elaborate shape and cover will cost more than the simple project shown. And the trim may be expensive; the better grades of material sell for more than the bargain stuff. The seat shown was reworked for $25. A more involved padding change and the full tuckand-roll cover could go for at least twice that. You could pay more for the rebuild than for an over-the-counter replacement seat.
And you’ll get exactly what you want.
Allyn Air Seat
Box 576
Lenox, Mass. 01240
E Z Berg Custom Contour
8909-E Complex Dr.
San Diego, Calif. 92123
Corbin-Gentry, Inc.
40 Maple St.
Somersville, Conn. 06072
Custom Dressers
6421 Cox Ave.
Oklahoma City, Okia. 73149
Cycle Seats Dist. Co.
733 Salem
Glendale, Calif. 91203
Endura of California
300 Cypress Ave.
Aihambra, Calif. 91801
F.!. Kan Industries
P.O. Box 9134
Fort Worth, Tex. 76107
Hardin Solo Seat
Hardin Sales & Mfg.
Rt. 2, Box 174-A
Scottsbluff, Nebr. 69361
J&J Cycle Seats
P.O. Box 9
Smartsville. Calif. 95977
Land Tool Company
650 E. Gilbert
Wichita, Kan. 67211
LePera Ent. Inc.
11070 Fleetwood St.
Sun Valley, Calif. 91352
Mr. Seats, Inc.
7312 Laurel Canyon Blvd.
N. Hollywood. Calif. 91605
Portco Corporation
4200 Columbia Way
Vancouver, Wash. 98661
Travel Ease Water Cushion
JML Products, Inc.
P.O. Box 17808
Milwaukee, Wisc. 53217
