I'm not very  big and have shortish legs and that seat is uncomfortable to me so I can imagine it would be bad for you guys.

It pitches my hips the wrong way so I tend to get lower back ache if I'm on it for long periods. So I'm looking at some further mod to fix that.

Sat on a Kawasaki Eliminator all day yesterday for the MSF course and my back was fine. It does have better foam. And even though the seat is shaped similar to the savage for some reason it worked better. Not quite as scooped.

I'm also thinking that the previous owner of my savage was perhaps rather heavier than I and the seat is just worn down. New foam I guess.

I looked at it.  It looks nice, but is about $290 more than I can spend right now.  I started modifying my existing seat yesterday.  It's my first attempt at any kind of seat manufacture or upholstery, so it ought to be interesting.  So far, I'm having fun at it.  Taking bunches of pictures, in case it turns out well.  Maybe someone will want a step by step.

If it looks like Peewee Herman's bike seat when I'm done, the pictures will mysteriously vanish due to a Windows system error.  It's been comedic, to say the least.  Being a carpenter, I had visions of building a wooden pan.  In the tech section on that idea it should say "don't."  

At the moment I have a huge foam contraption sitting on the bike ready for carving, rasping, shaping of some sort.  It isn't pretty, YET, but it feels pretty nice to sit on.

On the other hand, maybe someone here knows something about shaping foam that can stop me before I get in trouble.  Any experts out there?

Hadn't thought about the router.  If I ever do this again, I will definitely try the table saw and possibly a jigsaw.  We use the table saw for Thermax all the time, but that is pretty dense stuff, and doesn't melt easilly.  It would be worth the experiment.  

I have it all mocked up now, and am going outside to glue the panels together, so any further shaping is going to be along the lines of carving, instead of cutting out great hunks of material.  I'm going to try a rasp or a Surform (used on sheetrock edges), but I suspect the foam isn't dense enough and will probably just shred.  The good news (I hope) is that I get to wrap this thing in shiny black vinyl when it's all over with, so any little flaws should be hidden.

Here's what it looks like at the moment:



We shall see...

Yeah.  That's actually a poor photo.  I'm using one of those sleeping bag pads, and it has been rolled up tightly since birth.  I'm having a devil of a time keeping it in the shape I want.  It keeps trying to roll back up.  When it is all pressed down tight, that top layer "swoops" the other direction, though to a lesser degree than pictured.  Another thing I would do differently next time is to pay more attention to which direction the sheet is laying when I make my cuts.  Try to get my curves right.

Once I have this mess all glued together, I'm going to sit on it one more time and see how it feels.  I'd like to add a final top layer to tie everything together, but I think it's going to be too tall for that.

Thanks, Gary.  Lots of good ideas in there.  I'm going to go try a sander on the foam right now.  I hadn't thought of that one.  If it works, one of my problems will be solved.

Part of the problem with our seat is the shape.  It lifts up in the back to keep us from loosing the bike.    WooHoo!
Now maybe if we take a lession from the pedal pushers of the world and releave the center it might be more comfortable.
I like the direction sandy is going but who was it that just sold their seat that looked really cool and he said it was comfortable?  It looked high in the center and drooped on either side.

FreeSpirit wrote on 05/13/08 at 21:00:25:

Nothing will keep you from flying off on bumps ( I got a serious bump on the way home, either me and the bike do a little hop or I'm standing) but your own hands, but twist the grip and your but goes sliding!  That sudden snap when you run out of arms could wring your hands free.  Can you say... be otch bar?  Someone told me they had to sell their bike cause they kept dropping the misses.  

No I meant tailbone and that other bone releif like in the bike seats.