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Seat modification on the 2017 N1K

2K views 9 replies 5 participants last post by  naren 
#1 ·
After my recent 500km roadtrip along with my wife the seat sent a strong message about how bad it is. The stock seat's contour wants to press onto your bottoms and after a couple of hours it starts to hurt enough to hate the seat.
Also my wife (being all of 5'5" and of small build) kept complaining about the gap between the rider and pillion being big enough to make it uncomfortable for her as she kept sliding forwards each time I braked.
I had to use a rolled up towel to close the gap but that was not 'neat' enough and today I went over to a bike seat upholstery shop and sat with the guy and got him to mod the pillion seat to add more cushioning (about an inch) and extend the seat forward about 1.5 inches
This makes the seat taller but hopefully fixes the other shortcomings. If not, I'll go back and have some rework done.
I also had the driver's seat sides shaved/filed and removed material to round it off from its current cliff kinda profile. Hopefully this will help reduce'eliminate the pressure point near the butt.
Here are some pictures...
 

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#2 ·
Looks nice, but the important thing is does it feel better? Seeing as I'm all of 5'2", I bought the factory Ergo seat for my 2017, then took it to the upholstery shop and had them carve off the edges. You're right, the stock seat is far too angular and creates pressure points or hot spots fairly quickly. With the corners rounded off and some material taken out of the seat, I can sit on the bike better, and still have all day comfort. I pulled a 4600+ mile trip this last September, and the start of it was 1062 miles in <15 hours for my Iron Butt, and MY butt was just fine.
 
#4 ·
Even worse, prior to the Ninja, I never had to replace the seat to do a 12 hour day in the saddle. It was on a bunch of Hondas going back to the 80's so somebody knew how to design reasonable seats.
Kudos to Naren for solving the problem for him and his wife.
 
#7 ·
Naren, did your place replace all of the foam, or add to what was there?

At one time, my dad did some custom work for a palce that made horse saddles for high end buyers. Why are those as hard as a rock, yet extremely comfortable?
 
#10 ·
I think the issue is with the 'amount' of foam... cheap foam will wither/powder away over time, good foam lasts much longer...
I think a combination of thicker foam with the correct contour/shape would immensely help with the issues in the stock seat.
My kids and wife immediately noticed the difference in the rear seat and my son said it's much better than the older/stock one because of the extra foam providing better support. So I am going in the right direction here.
RIght now the new seat covering is a little coarser grained than the original one that was on the seat as I decided to match both seats because the rear seat needed a new cover due to its increased size.
The coarser grain seems to want to heat up on longer trips and may need some 'break-in'.. if it does not resolve in the next few rides, I'll probably change to a smoother grained cover and see if that helps.
The upholster wanted to add on some foam to the rider seat and I refused it fearing that the ride height might increase (it will), but now I am thinking if I can narrow down the seat a bit, adding more foam for better cushioning will probably neutralize the ride height aspect and give me a more comfortable riding position... let's see...
 
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