Useless Ululations and Random Ruminations

My motorcycle seat was fried. Two summers ago, the bike spent the entire summer in the driveway, rain or shine, without a cover. After a summer of exposure to the elements, the rear-seam came apart, partially exposing the foam filling (which was okay with me). I rode on that for a couple of years, but this past week the seat moved past the point of no return. Pieces of foam were cut out and were sticking to my backside afer long rides. I'd get off the bike and pieces of foam would stick to me for a second, then fall off "me bum" and I'd have to bend all the way to the ground (a long way for a 6'3" overweight 37 year old) to pick 'em up and put it back together again. So it was time to replace it, which irked me somewhat since the bike is only a 2003. However, I decided to look into replacing it only out of necessity.

Well, motorcycle seats are ex-pen-sive!

$600 bucks for a nice Mustang seat, $500 for a Corbin, and $300 for a Saddlemen. My friend Jeremy and I discussed my options via the phone and I still wasn't comfortable spending that kind of money on a seat, despite the comfort a fancy seat might provide. Jeremy suggested that I make my own new cover and that idea took.

So this a.m., I stopped by Joann fabrics and picked up some marine vinyl and put together a new seat cover, making it slightly larger than the original in order to take a gel-pad under it to improve comfort. Custom designing it along the way, of course. If you look at it closely, you can tell it's not professionally done, but it looks okay.

So, the best part? $27 plus 4 hours labor and I have a "new" seat, custom designed and slightly more comfortable than the old one. Much better than multiple hundreds of dollars. What a bargain!