The stylish Triumph Bonneville debuted in The English bike has gone through three separate production runs: from to , to and the current generation, which hit the road in The bike has retained its retro design over the years, but the '07 is more powerful than previous models.
Engineers increased displacement in the four-stroke air-cooled parallel-twin cylinder engine by nearly ten percent; it jumped from from cc to cc. Aside from Harley-Davidson bikes, Triumphs are probably the most customized production motorcycles on the road. Modifying a seat cover — usually standard black with ribs — is a popular and affordable way to personalize a Triumph.
One of our customers wanted a more stylish cover for his '07 Bonnie. The Marlin Ochre vinyl he selected for the new cover is a high performance, smooth grain faux leather. While it's not leather, it looks and feels like the real thing. Just as important, it's extremely durable and mildew resistant. The owner wanted to keep the old school grab handle, but replace the ribs with diamond stitching on the rider's end of the saddle and longitudinal pleats down the back. Diamonds and pleats are always a good choice, but keep in mind there are plenty of other ways to make your new seat cover pop.
The stitching doesn't have to go in straight lines and the thread doesn't have to be one color. Use your imagination. Chances are we can make it happen. The Trail 55 was one of Honda's original off-road bikes. Built between and , they were a cross between a scooter and an off-road bike. The small motorcycles featured an automatic clutch, a four stroke engine, and 17 inch wheels with knobby tires. According to Wikipedia , this family of bikes had "either three or four speed transmissions, plus a second choice of HIGH or LOW bands to apply the same gears to road travel or slower off-road travel.
The early bikes achieved this by having two drive sprockets at the rear wheel, which required the rider to dismount and thread the chain onto the desired sprocket. Later bikes placed the two-stage choice within the gearbox, and required the rider to only move a lever. With all of that engineering, they could handle almost any track. Updated versions of the bike were called "Posties" in Australia due to their long association with the Australia Post. One of our Wisconsin customers got his hands on a working Trail The vinyl saddle was torn in places, the rubber was flat and there was rust on the seat pan.
It was time for a major overhaul. We began by refurbishing the seat pan. We scoured off the rust, primed and repainted the surface, then revitalizeed the OEM rubber. We also cleaned and polished the chrome. The seat foam was shot, so we tossed the old stuff and replaced it with state-of-the-art polyurethane foam. The foam work restored the original feel, but the owner wanted something softer. With a seat this thick there's plenty of room for gel, so we recommended a custom gel pad.
That did the trick. The seat turned out softer than before, but identical to the original. The small, two stroke bike topped out at about 55 mph.
It's not the sort of motorcycle that pops to mind when you think of Harley-Davidson, but for a short time in the Sixities and Seventies the company slapped its nameplate on 50cc and cc Italian Aermacchis to counter the influx of small, entry level Japanese motorcycles flooding the US market. We restored a 50cc Aermacchi seat not too long ago. This is a seat for its big brother. The seat frame arrived stripped and painted. With the prep work done, we went to work on the cover. Aermacchi built different style seats for different years.
Research revealed that the Enduro featured five medium width fore to aft pleats. We matched the original look perfectly. Padding the seat turned out to be a little more challenging. Unlike most motorcycle seats, Aermacchi seats are cushioned with springs not foam. The owner didn't like the stiff ride.
Under normal circumstances we'd simply add a layer of polyurethane foam and maybe a custom gel pad. Unfortunately, we couldn't do that on this seat without dramatically altering its shape. The compromise solution: cover the springs with half an inch of medium density foam. The thin foam improved the ride without sacrificing the vintage look. Normally, when somebody brings in a DIY seat pan we cringe. Even if they get the dimensions right, something else is usually off. The alignment is wrong or a bracket is missing or the surface is too rough; it's always something.
We can usually repair their mistakes and build what the customer wants, but that takes extra time and money. Here's an example of somebody who knew what they were doing. The fiberglass seat pan he built is just about perfect first two pics.
Not only are the dimensions and hardware on point, the edges and surface are smooth as a baby's butt. A smooth surface is important for a couple of reasons. If a seat pan is bumpy or twisted, the padding won't be level. If the edges are rough, the vinyl may chafe and the edge band won't look right. This bike owner wanted the best of both worlds; he wanted his custom seat to accommodate a passenger without sacrificing the humpback look.
Since a traditional shell was out of the question, we built the humpback out of foam. That way a passenger can hop on the seat every once in a while without cracking his tailbone. We completed the project with two types of vinyl and stylish horizontal pleats. The customer loved it. He snapped this pic after finishing the bike and installing the new seat. Something definitely ripped it to pieces, and the teeth marks match a forty pound wolverine.
They also match a goofy Golden Retriever puppy, but "vicious wolverine" sounds better, so we're going with that. The owner wanted a new cover and a custom gel pad. Before doing any of that, we had to fix the wolverine damage.
Proper foam repair not only requires the right tools and materials, you need to know what you're doing. For one thing, you have to match the characteristics of the original seat foam with the replacement foam. Then you have to trim and replace the damaged sections without compromising comfort or support. It's tricky to cut, shape and seamlessly glue all the pieces together so they stay in place. As you can see in the above pic, this foam repair was flawless.
With the wolverine damage repaired we went to work on the new cover. The owner wanted a cover that looked like the original, so we suggested something with pleats and two styles of durable, marine grade black vinyl.
Decorative stitching is a great way to dress up a motorcycle seat cover. You don't have to go crazy with fancy embroidery and gaudy colors. Sometimes less is more. Here's a saddle we customized for a Suzuki VS Intruder. The owner selected a stylish double diamond stitch to embellish the seat. Before fabricating the vinyl cover we rebuilt the padding and installed a custom gel pad.
The gel pad is built into the seat so it doesn't "print". You'd never know the seat was gelled unless you sat on it. Supermoto conversions were big in the early eighties. The modifiction procedure went something like this: take a dirt bike or enduro, add 17 inch wheels, flip the front forks and beef up the brakes. Make a few more adjustments and presto chango, you'd get a nimble, light weight, street legal bike designed to handle just about anything, including off road bumps and jumps.
These versatile bikes fell out of favor roughly 30 years ago when ABC Sports stopped promoting supermoto races. Now they're making a comeback. While factory-built supermotos are available, lots of bikers prefer doing their own conversions.
This is one of those do-it-yourself models. The owner wanted a perfect custom seat, so he came to us. Stiff rebond foam is ideal for a demanding supermoto seat like this. After shaping the foam, we recommended two charcoal vinyls with the same hue; a textured vinyl for the saddle face, a slightly tacky vinyl for the sides.
The result is a medium stiff seat with a little bite to hold the rider in place. When building a seat from scratch it's tempting to tuck a gel pad inside to enhance comfort.
Custom gel is a must for cruisers or street bikers stuck in one position for endless miles. Supermotos are a horse of a different color. You're not gonna be sitting in one position riding one of these; gel pads are strictly optional.
Half the fun of owning a chopper or bobber is building it yourself. Stripping and customizing a factory motorcycle to your specifications gets you exactly what you want. That's if you can pull it off. There's no shame in not having all the necessary skills; that's where we come in.
Here's a two-up BWM seat the owner tried to modify into a single. He did a pretty good job roughing-out the shape, but about halfway through the project he ran into some problems. No surprise there. Cutting, layering and fitting seat foam the right way is a lot harder than it looks. Polyurethane foam comes in different densities and standards.
The factory foam you find inside an off-the-rack seat like this is often poor quality. You can't always cut and repurpose substandard foam. Fortunately, we were able to keep costs down by pairing some of the existing factory foam with the stuff we use to rebuild the seat. With the seat properly engineered, we added the cover. As you can see in the before and after pics, the rebuilt solo not only looks brand new, you'd never know it was originally a two-up.
A customer in Michigan recently purchased a pair of vintage gems: a Dunstall equipped Norton Commando and a American Eagle Sprite. The Dunstall Norton is especially prized by British motorcycle collectors. Its speed and performance dominated the UK racing scene during the late sixties. When bikes are this old, the first thing to go bad is usually seat upholstery. As expected, both of these collector bikes needed a new cover and a seat rebuild. The seat from the Norton Commando Dunstall above left appeared to be original, so it provided us with a perfect template.
We tuned-up the seat pan, rebuilt the foam, then copied the vinyl pattern from the original down to the precise number of horizontal ribs. Today's high performance vinyls are a lot better than the junk they were using back in As you can see, the rebuilt seat looks the same as the original, but with much better foam and vinyl.
The American Eagle Sprite was an off-road dynamo designed for trials, scrambles and motocross. Despite its name and the "American Eagle" logo cast into its engine case, the American Eagle Sprite was never manufactured in the United States.
The bike was a private-label motorcycle built at Sprite Developments near Birmingham, England. Instead of reproducing the original seat, the customer wanted something a little more styish.
After rebuilding the padding, we designed and fabricated a seat cover with snappy horizontal pleats and a contrasting accent welt. It's not authentic, but it's a definite upgrade from the plain looking original seat cover. Yamaha unleashed the snazzy, midsize XSR back in The company's Faster Sons philosophy guided this retro-modern bike's development and release. The Faster Sons method merges today's technology with yesterday's classic looks.
The result is a high performance bike with retro styling, such as exposed aluminum pieces, retro-influenced bodywork, custom instrumentation and a stepped seat. Instead of the standard stepped seat, he wanted something streamlined with a narrow, flatter profile. With that in mind, we stripped the seat, then redesigned and rebuilt it to the owners specifications. When you're rebuilding a seat, you might as well go all in by installing a custom gel pad.
Our gel pads are much better than something you'd find online or in a bike store. In addition to being custom-fitted, we use a higher quality gel than the stuff you can buy in a store. You'd be surprised how much difference a properly designed gel pad can make. After rebuilding the seat foam and adding a custom gel pad we crafted a one-of-a-kind seat cover to go with it. The owner selected a vinyl that looks and feels like leather.
Nice choice. And check out the perfect stitching! Japanese motorcycles flooded the US market back in the s. Harley Davidson and other domestic manufacturers were caught off guard by the popularity of the small, affordable bikes. Harley responded by introducing its own line of small motorcycles, sort of. Instead of engineering brand new bikes, it purchased half of Aermacchi's motorcycle division.
Then it slapped its Harley nameplate on some of the smaller Italian-made bikes and called it good. The M50 was built for a couple of years in the mid-sixties. This is one of those vintage bikes top left. The owner wanted the seat rebuilt as part of a restoration project, so he called us. The 50 year old seat had to be stripped to the frame then rebuilt from scratch. After cleaning off the badly corroded suspension, we repaired and repainted the seat frame.
Then we shaped and installed brand new seat foam. We covered the rebuilt seat foam with marine grade vinyl. For authenticity purposes, we found a vinyl that matched the original color and texture. Since today's foams and vinyls are a lot more durable than the original stuff, this seat will last longer and perform much better. Maintaining the original look will also enhance the bike's resale value. It boasts a state-of-the-art Milwaukee Eight Big Twin engine with plenty of rumble to spare. The stiff frame and minimal rear suspension delivers a responsive ride.
Since most people are not average, seats usually need a tweak or two to fit right. In this instance, the owner needed the backrest pad adjusted. The owner insisted on keeping the original retro look, so wrapping a few inches of extra padding in generic vinyl wasn't going to cut it. Instead, we removed and rebuilt the backrest with a slightly larger pad, then designed and fabricated a cover that matched the original. The rebuilt backrest not only fits like a glove, it's a dead ringer for the original.
Best of all, the additional padding turned a smooth ride into near perfection. This is a great example of a little change that makes a big difference. If your ride doesn't feel right, give us a call.
A couple of simple changes could make all the difference. The owner wanted this one covered in brown suede leather with classic cross stitching. Suede leather is not the sort of fabric you'd use on an every day bike in Seattle. Rain can destroy suede in no time. Since this seat will go on a show bike in a state where the sun actually shines from time to time, it should be fine.
It was a cruiser bike built with a modified Gold Wing engine. The improved engine increased power and tork, making the Valkyrie more responsive that many cruisers.
The Valkyrie is a distinctive looking bike. This one-of-a-kind custom seat makes it even more stylish. Gary, the bike's owner, selected two premium vinyls for his custom seat cover — black and pebbled ochre.
It's sort of hard to tell online, but the ochre vinyl looks and feels a lot like basketball leather. Before embossing the pebbled vinyl with an original design, we installed a custom gel pad inside the rider's seat foam. For the final touch, we added brass studs and a golden bronze welt.
New Seating Installed on Valkyrie. Here's a pic Gary sent us with the new seating installed. BTW, Gary lives in Michigan. If you ride in the midwest don't be surprised if a Valkyrie with a one-of-a-kind seat catches your eye. These bikes feature a hidden rear suspension designed to absorb bumps and smooth a passenger's ride. Because the rear suspension is hidden, a softail looks like a standard rigid frame Harley.
This one has a slightly raised P Pad first row left. The original seat was adequate, but the owner wanted something more reminiscent of a one piece king and queen seat. We do this sort of modification all the time, but since every rider's body is different it's important for each rider to test the seat modifications for up to a week before we fabricate the new cover. If the rider doesn't like the fit, we make addition modifications.
If the fit is good we go to work on the cover. As you can see from the bottom two pics, we reshaped, raised and fused the original P pad to the rider's saddle so it's more like a king and queen. The cover was made from durable, marine grade vinyl.
Notice the flawless craftsmanship. Way back in , Honda found itself in a pickle. The company was launching a brand new five speed , but still had a warehouse full of older four speed models. Instead of slashing prices to stimulate sales, they tweaked the bikes to capitalize on the street scrambler fad sweeping the nation.
The old s became Honda CBDs, complete with high pipes, a special tank, seat and side covers. Since very few CBDs were manufactured, the old bikes are popular with collectors. These bikes are half a century old. If a collector is lucky enough to stumble upon one, it's going to need a lot more than new plugs and an oil change. In this instance, the entire seat was trashed. The owner wanted us to build one that looked just like the original.
All we had to go on was the seat pan and what was left of the original cover top right. As you can see, it turned out great. We were able to match the materials and textures including the stylish gold welt.
It's a dead ringer for the original. Be careful of the Velcro attachment points as shown in picture above. Some of the newer seats on RT models use hog rings and not Velcro. Then trace around it using a marking pen. When finished the foam side will face up, but you can turn it upside down with the gel side up, as shown above, to make it easier to trace the outline.
Now draw a grid across the outline as shown above. Then cut around the inside of the outline, and then across each of the grid lines. Go slowly and make the bottom surface as smooth as you reasonably can.
Use the knife for shaving larger pieces of the bottom surface if necessary. This post give me great information and details…. I install gels in motorcycle seats I use all my scrapes and melt them down and make a new sheat of gel but all gel pad are diffent you can not mix the gel.
Reading these comments is interesting. I have been installing gel in seats now for 25 years. I use medical gel only. I also put a layer of insulating material over the pad as gel can get hot.
I started back then as a favor for a friend who is a parapalegic. Trikes are still a big business for me. Thanks very much for the info. Just did a km two day ride on our Kawi Vulcan and it was great except for the sore bum and lower back. Going to see if I can buy some gel locally to put under the seat vinyl. Would not mind if the sear is a bit higher. Gel underneath, cut down original foam on top. Actually, considerably shorter. Either permanently compressed or it has begun to literally turn to crumbs.
We used the memory foam from Skandia in the aircraft. Also, memory foam is heat sensitive. The warmer it gets, the softer it becomes. So if you are going to use memory foam, use a denser grade than what you feel is required. But, in the end, I still prefer to use progressive densities of regular foam when building bike seats.
From the pan, up. Seat shape also plays into the comfort zone, too. Has anyone tried removing all of the foam and putting gel pad the full size of seat, then reattaching the foam? Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Both, however, are definitely more comfortable than no gel pad at all. I then trimmed the motorcycle seat in ostrich-grain vinyl. And there you have it, a more comfortable motorcycle seat!
Comments Great how to. Where are you located, I would like for you to do my seat, thanks. Cheryllea Stitch Brown : We use the gel pads as well at xtreme upholstery, never had a problem Brad Wurzbacher : personally i think gel is trash, and all mental when it comes to how comfortable a seat is. I install gels in motorcycle seats I use all my scrapes and melt them down and make a new sheat of gel but all gel pad are diffent you can not mix the gel I use a clear looking gel.
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