I watched American Thunder the other night and there was a spot where they were inside Harley's R&D department. They showed how they went about designing their seats using a highly sophisticated computer setup attached to a thermal seat pan. When their volunteers of all sizes and shapes would sit on the bike seat the computer screen would render colours indicating where a riders hot and cold spots were - butt and tailbone meets seat. Red: was not good as it represented bone contact. Blue was good and comfortable. Point of the exercise was to eliminate as much and as many of the red zones as possible to come up with a universal fitting seat. I guess that's why I have never sat on an uncomfortable Sportster size HD seat (I'm not a physically big guy).

If you want to do it yourself than the old trial and error method is all you have unless. As a group we could exert some pressure on an aftermarket company like Corbin to design and build us a couple of versions. They will consider it if there is enough interest but the Savage community has to let them know.

Take alook here: http://www.alphagalileo.org/index.cfm?_rss=1&fuseaction=readrelease&releaseid...

The other thing I would look at before the seat is the suspension. In my opinion a pair of Progressive Susupension shocks can make a world of difference in how comfortable the seat feels.

  Is the 250 seat wider or better than yours if so is there any way one of  those  would fit on s40

The 250 does feel a little better sitting in the driveway, but the geometry is different, so it's hard to make a true comparison.  It is a little wider and a little flatter.  I'm thinking maybe the front of the seat is too narrow, and is leaving too much of my leg hanging out in space.  Also, it just seems that the distance between the front of the seat and the back is too short, regardless of how far I stretch my legs out.  When my tailbone is against the hump, my front bone is against the upsweep near the tank.  Hmmm... is it possible to have too long of a butt?  Is there surgery for that?  Perhaps a glutectomy?

I opted for the pillow-top gel seat from Suzuki.  It's an improvement, but still far from perfect.  Some of it is just the cruiser ergos -- you are sitting back in a bit of a "tough-guy" slouch on this bike.  Accept it, and try to jiggle around so there's more pressure on your butt cheeks and less on  the tailbone.  

Also, as a rule of thumb, you want your body weight supported by the backs of the leg bones, the hip bones and the butt cheeks.  

You DO NOT want support along the midline.  Doing so produces pressure on the pudendal nerve, which can result in tingling and numbness in places we generally don't want to go numb.  (OK, the folks at Vibe-Rider feel that a little tingling can be a good thing --- http://www.viberider.com/ --- but it does have an off switch for a reason!)

Avoiding midline pressure is why bicycle seats are going to the split design, aka "Viagra saddles".

Just a few thoughts....

A saddle type seat is lots more comfortable(to me)! I sat on one one time and thought omg...this is THE perfect seat.It seems to sit you in the proper sitting position.Relieve bad seating position.

Wider would be nice! I feel much better/more comfortable on wider seats.

It does all depend on seating position. Are your knees above your lap....if so,bad seating...will hurt!! Need to solve that problem whether it be forward controls or higher seat,etc.Knees higher put pressure on the wrong tailbone places=very uncomfortable.

Corbin seat may be perfect....just hear alot of good things about them.No actual experience though.

More people than the Savage owners complain of their seat and are continuously trying to find/make the perfert seat.Again,sometimes its overall seating position.

I felt when I went around and sat on many,manydifferent bikes/different seats that I got a better idea of what would be the best seat....and tried going from there on getting/making/coming up with one.It definitely helps to sit on different type MC seats.To get a better idea of what you want/need.

Too much info?....ok  
I also read alot on the net about ppl's opinions of different solutions
It may be different solutions for different ppl.Hope you can come up with the one for you!

bill67 wrote on 05/10/08 at 19:44:55:


Some people get them from ebay=cheaper

Since putting on the forward controls I do find the seat more comfortable.   If you sit on the back of the stock seat it is going to be uncomfortable.  The forward controls allow you to sit on the front of the seat where it is flatter.  The problem there is that the seat in pretty narrow at that point.  But it is more comfortable than the back of the seat is.