The Seat of my Bike

After the ride to Indy I have a much stronger opinion about the Concours' stock seat.  It's soft and comfy on short rides, but on long rides it turns into a kind of torture device.  There are options for Concours seats that I can't justify on an $800 bike, but the cheaper option arrived, so yesterday during the rain I gave it a go.

It's tedious, but loosening the staples with a screwdriver makes
for clean removal with needle nose pliers.

The process took about an hour and a half to swap out the seat cover.  The seat fabric is held down by industrial staples.  I loosened them with a small flat-head screwdriver and then pulled them out with needle nose pliers.  It's time consuming because there are a couple of hundred of them holding the seat to the plastic base.

The cover peeled off relatively easy, only sticking where the Gorilla tape I'd used on the torn seam was touching the foam (that stuff is mega).

With the foam exposed I tried fitting the new seat skin and found that it had much more extra material on it.  I was looking to firm up the seat a bit any way, so I took the gel pad I got on the Indy trip and found it would fit under the new cover.  It would also raise the seat slightly, which would do my knees some favours.

Attaching a new seat cover is a tricky business.  The vast majority of swearing happened while doing this.  Rotating the seat so you can put weight on the staple as you squeeze the handle of the stapler helps seat it properly, but it's a pretty muscley process.  Getting the edges tight requires some practice.  This one came pretty close, but future ones I'll be pickier about and get even snugger.

In the meantime I've got a seat that feels firmer, sits a touch higher and isn't covered in tape.  I think the end result looks pretty good, and for thirty bucks plus shipping, it's a good cheap alternative to those sweet Corbin seats.

I found this seat cover maker on ebay.  The seat arrived quickly and is as advertised.  I can't speak for its toughness yet, but installing it I found that it was made of thick vinyl and the sewing was very strong.  It's a cool sunny day today, I'm going to give it a whirl and see how it does.

The stock seat tore on the stitching, Gorilla tape did the business until I could find a better solution.

The Seat of my Pants

It's a piece of art, but I can't justify spending over $500cdn on
a seat for a bike that cost $800.

Nice eh?  That's the dream seat for the Concours.  The old one has split and is so tired it's about as comfortable as a park bench.  This Corbin seat is the four hundred dollar (US) answer to that question.

The Corbin Seat Configurator is fun to play with even if you can't justify the cost.  You can create some really disco designs.  It lets you select variations in pattern, colour and material for the seat, sides, welt and stitching.  If you like motorbike seats you'll be distracted by this for hours.

I wish I could swing that Corbin seat but I just can't justify a $500 seat on an $800 motorcycle, though I wish I could.

It ain't no Corbin super model, but it'll do the job

A more sensible alternative was found on ebay.  This seat cover would replace the tired old one.  It also comes with padding built in which should shore up the tired seat - though once I've taken it apart I might just replace the padding anyway.

The maker is a retired automotive upholster who runs an ebay store with good ratings where he makes custom seats for a wide variety of bikes.   At less than forty bucks Canadian (though the shipping doubles the price), this will (hopefully) resolve the seat cover and comfort issues for under $100 Canadian.

I've already done a half assed job sewing up the old seat (it's impossible to do properly without taking the cover off because the stitching is all on the inside).  When the new cover comes in I should be able to stretch it on in no time.

I still wish I could've managed that Corbin though, it's a piece of art.  Maybe next time.

DISCO!