I Customized my seat for touring

[NVDucati]

A while back I posted a "Seat Wanted" for my 1300. I got one from one of our members. During that thread someone asked and a couple of others suggested they would like to see what was done.
I finished it a couple of weeks ago and have put two 500+ mile days on the "new" seat. I'm very please to say that my butt outlasted my attention span and there are no more changes planned.
* I had five goals:
1 Turn it into a flat seat so that I'm not locked into a single position all day.
2 Make it a little bit longer.
3 Recover it with fabric that had more traction, to reduce fatigue.
4 Protect my perineum (the area between the scrotum and the anus).
5 Add some support for my upper thighs.
I've added some photos that I think are self explanatory. It is a bit difficult to display them side by side, but I tried. As we all know the OEM cover somewhat hides the full depth of the tractor seat dip. The usable length is about 3 inches longer.
The black foam (photo 5.2) is 1/2" neoprene camping pad material (Amazon $13). It is folded over itself with the rear corners shaves flush and in between the fold at the front two corners are pieces of high density foam I had for the upper thigh support.

 

[STFlips]

Nice job

 

[Kevcules]

Real nice job!

 

[Hondafarian]

Be careful sharing your results. With all the sore posteriors here you may find yourself in the custom seat business. Great job!

 

[NVDucati]

Be careful sharing your results. With all the sore posteriors here you may find yourself in the custom seat business. Great job!

Thanks. I've been "personalizing" the seats on my own bikes for longer than I care to admit.
The main reason for posting it is to let people know that it is not deep magic and not hard to do. Of all the parts on our bikes, there is no other part that gets used more than the seat.
I still buy a used OEM seat so as to not tie up the bike and add pressure to settle for less just to get back to riding. Now-a-days I pretty much get it right on the first go. Then I sell that extra seat.
Once you know what you want, it is easy and you can escape that buy and pray syndrome. But even if someone just adds the "slot" the extended seat time is exponential. The perineum is the type of thing that once it even begins to become inflamed it quickly gets worse until that otherwise comfy seat turns into "Made by the Devil".
I hope my 5 points helps other riders but, no, I'm not going into the butt rescue business.

 

[Smudgemo]

Neat. I may give this a go with the crusty stocker in my attic. The Corbin on my 11 is okay but I'd like some additional height in addition to a flat/tractor shape (not to mention losing the extra weight.) Seems easy enough to play around with foam and cover with something temporarily, then have a local shop sew a decent cover when the shape is good.

Where do you source the foam (I assume the black foam is firm)? And do you have two black layers where the slotted piece is covered by another layer?

 

[NVDucati]

Neat. I may give this a go with the crusty stocker in my attic. The Corbin on my 11 is okay but I'd like some additional height in addition to a flat/tractor shape (not to mention losing the extra weight.) Seems easy enough to play around with foam and cover with something temporarily, then have a local shop sew a decent cover when the shape is good.

Where do you source the foam (I assume the black foam is firm)? And do you have two black layers where the slotted piece is covered by another layer?

You are pretty close to me, I have an extra OEM cover that is in A-OK condition that you can have if you decide to really do it.

 

[Chris09]

I noticed after riding my bone hard corbin seat the second time that it was better than the stock seat, the first time I rode it I couldn't stand it, I guess there's a few different aspects to the whole thing that you've got here, one I notice is there seems to be instead of saddle slope, your seat is more horizontal and then a step, probably where your ass can reference. I'm back in the original saddle tomorrow, gonna reset my seat to the mid position, probably gonna angle park the bike again, but looks like you're onto something there.

 

[Chris09]

great pics

 

[RichKat]

Did you use the stock cover, if not what did you cover it with? Also what size staples did you use. Thanks

 

[NVDucati]

Did you use the stock cover, if not what did you cover it with? Also what size staples did you use. Thanks

It is from scratch (but mimics the folds around the nose). It is stretchy, high traction universal fabric from Amazon. About $20.MOTOBA Elastic Leather Motorcycle Seat Cover, Universal Motorcycle Flexible Seat Protector
Just fasten the center front and center rear first. The staples are the smallest ones from Arrow that fit their whimpy air stapler (same as a Harbor Freight air stapler.

 

[RichKat]

Thanks my friend