DIYing a custom seat

[TominMO]

Was thinking about ways to make my KPX both lower in seat height and also more comfortable to ride. Searched the Interwebs.

Here's a guy in the Seattle area who builds custom seats, butt* you have to go there with your bike for a custom fitting.
https://www.richscustomseats.com/

Luckily, there is a video on how he does this. Naturally, it ain't cheap.



Thinking I can do a half-a$$ed* but serviceable job myself, for about $60.

https://www.amazon.com/GoTo-Foam-Hei...ef_=ast_sto_dp

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CCB4M74D...ing=UTF8&psc=1

https://www.amazon.com/Lisyline-Moto...30&sr=8-7&th=1

* All plays on words are intentional

[TominMO]

More ideas and materials:

https://www.sailrite.com/Allsport-4-...4-Vinyl-Fabric

The last five minutes show installing the seat cover.



Aaaand another one:



And another one:

[ProDigit]

All I did was buy a sheet of quality foam, buy a sheet of vinyl (AliExpress sells seat vinyl), put the foam over the stock seat, then stretch and staple the vinyl sheet over the foam to the seat.

Then cover it with a 3D mesh cover. Seat comfort is improved by multifold.

[TominMO]

What type of foam did you buy, and how firm/dense?

[buzz]

Come on guys ,its a motorcycle seat. Do you put seats in your cars you don't like,no you don't. This is just stupid, cry baby stuff. Man up or quit riding bikes.

[ProDigit]

Originally Posted by TominMO

What type of foam did you buy, and how firm/dense?

I use this foam with great success:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S6ZY5J9

Get the 1inch firm version. It's got enough foam for 3 seats easily, so you could double up on foam even.
Awesome for the longer trips

[TominMO]

Originally Posted by ProDigit

I use this foam with great success:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07S6ZY5J9

Get the 1inch firm version. It's got enough foam for 3 seats easily, so you could double up on foam even.
Awesome for the longer trips

That's exactly the one I was looking at.

[culcune]

Originally Posted by TominMO

Was thinking about ways to make my KPX both lower in seat height and also more comfortable to ride. Searched the Interwebs.

When the Bashan dual-sports were popular a few years back (they included the Brozz, the Storm, the Raven, as well as the motorsports company, BMS, rebadged a Bashan and called it the BMS Enduro 250 CRP, a husband and wife bought two of them to go riding locally and haul them long distances to use on trips.

The Bashan lineup of bikes used the 'oddball' 19"/16" wheel setup (except for the Raven if I am not mistaken) so are a bit shorter in height. However, the BMS-branded CRP used 21"/18" and an accompanying traditional 36" seat height.

The wife had a long thread of her ownership of the bikes, including how she used a hot-knife to shave off a couple inches out of her seat. She even re-used the seat cover. Pictures she displayed looked completely stock. She wasn't a professional seat customizer, but just figured out how to do it, and did it well.

I do not recall her screen name, but I do believe if you search under BMS CRP 250 or thereabouts, her thread will come up. Of course a lot of the thread was general ownership experiences, but there were several posts of her seat customization trick. You might want to find the thread.

[TominMO]

Originally Posted by buzz

Come on guys ,its a motorcycle seat. Do you put seats in your cars you don't like,no you don't. This is just stupid, cry baby stuff. Man up or quit riding bikes.

Got my seat cover off in about 12 minutes. About 50ish staples. A good tool for this is a 1/4" wide flat blade screwdriver with a good taper on it, which was on one of my multitools.

Here is a pic of the plastic pan and the seat foam. The foam is about 3" thick at the thickest part, where you would normally sit. It seems nicely dense, just too narrow for good distribution of rear-end weight.

I just ordered marine vinyl in blue for the cover, plus dense 1" thick foam and a 1 cm/0.4" thick gel pad. All due to arrive by Monday. Total cost $62.50. I'll keep you posted.

[TominMO]

Just out of curiosity, I put the plastic seat pan back on the bike and sat on it, using a thick pair of folded sweatpants to simulate 1" of padding. I have a 31" inseam, and could easily flatfoot it with a slight bend in my leg. This is what I am going for, a lower more street feel to the bike. I'm not used to the high offroad riding position and frankly don't like it. Feels too unstable to me. This also effectively raises the handlebars, adding to the stable feeling.

My plan is to use the very front of the stock seat foam, where it rises up onto the tank, and the rear 6", which is about 1" thick. This will help seat the new foam setup to the pan. For the middle 70% or so, I will use the 1" dense foam plus the gel pad. I will connect the three sections with gorilla tape, then of course install the new cover, which will keep it all secure. Gonna buy an electric carving knife to blend the shapes.