High seat/Low seat

[dumby]

=> Nakigara has been kind enough to post pictures of the seat mod!
=> See his January posting on 650GS handguards. THANKS, mon!

My stock (tall?) Rockster seat was higher at the back than at the middle. This always kept me tilted uncomfortably forward. My feet wouldn’t both readily touch the ground at a stop, and while riding I'd slide forward so my boys kept fetching up against the tank. I’d decided all this was something the insane gnomes at motorrad had figured out was necessary if the rider were to remain in what they’d chosen as the optimal riding position. Balance and wind resistance aside tho, I couldn't go on like that forever so I finally decided the time had come and I lowered the seat today. It worked pretty well! From start to finish took about 5 hours, mostly because I kept stopping to ponder what to do next.

Here's what I did:
First I removed the covering. Using pliers and a thin screwdriver I pulled all the staples all round. (– Lesson Learned – next time I’ll leave the staples in front third alone. I didn’t need to remove them, and the front staples are harder to reinstall because the form flexes in that area).
I put the bare seat back on the bike and then marked where I wanted the foam removed (about an inch off the back and then level from there). I was ready for the carving knife. I followed my line and did the bulk of it all in one cut - thinking that if it turned out to be way too much taken off I could use the removed piece as recovery material.
Then I put the seat back on and tried it – it felt right! Bullseye on the first try!
I spent a little while gingerly rounding the sharp edges, blending where I could and after that I tried putting the cover over the new shape. Every wave and contour was visible and no matter how tight I pulled it I had a large slack area in the center. What I wanted was something that would take out any ripples and fill the space but compress readily - sort of like progressive layers of foam.
I tried different materials around the house and of all things eventually settled on the blanket from around the Christmas tree stand! It’s relentlessly fluffy but doesn’t have any real substance (instead of substance it has glitter! ...all the better...) I started with a layer of craft foam trimmed to shape just to remove the lines and ended with a layer of the blanket stuff.
I began re-stapling the cover, beginning at the nose. Like I said before, it’s flexible there, so the staples don’t want to get started. You’ll need to fold the staples over to get rid of the points at first too, because the foam is thin there. On the other hand, it’s a good place to start since the foam there is unchanged and the cover wants go back exactly as it was. After I got past the nose I gave up on staples and went to #6 screws with washers about every inch or so. Once I reached the trimmed region I laid my foam+fluff into place and just kept stretching as I alternated sides. At the end it all came in tight, and my riding comfort is improved one-hundred percent!

Low-Tech Rules!
Materials:
- El cheapo electric carving knife $10
- Pkt #6 internal tooth lockwashers $0.98
- Pkt #6 finishing washers $0.98
- Pkt #6 x 3/8” panhead phillips-head screws $0.98
- 1 sheet of craft foam (~ 1/16” thk, looks like closed cell) $0.70
- Xmas tree blanket material $2.50
Total: $16.20