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Scooter seat

t6pilot

Active member
Seat on the GT is a little wide and high for shorter riders. Saddleman leather was at the long Beach show and came over and took a look at the scooter seats. Brought ours to their shop the following Thursday and by Monday afternoon it had been lowered by 1/2 in, sides trimmed by 1/2in each and a gel insert installed, seat looks great, comfortable and allows a 5'6" rider to flat foot. All for a reasonable cost $200
 
Seat on the GT is a little wide and high for shorter riders. Saddleman leather was at the long Beach show and came over and took a look at the scooter seats. Brought ours to their shop the following Thursday and by Monday afternoon it had been lowered by 1/2 in, sides trimmed by 1/2in each and a gel insert installed, seat looks great, comfortable and allows a 5'6" rider to flat foot. All for a reasonable cost $200

Photos? :)
 
Sorry i'am not photo savvy
Placed it on a 650gt seat at long beach BMW differences are hard to discern looking closely its lower and narrower, no change in seams. Gel seat sits under 1/4 foam pad so as not to show. When I picked up seat yesterday salesman Buster explained several other owners have inquired about doing the same. Long beach is considering have it done on demo bike. Saddlemans over all impression of the stock seat is that it is a high quality product, that can be made shorter
FYI I paid full price for seat mods and have no connection with saddleman
They are 15 mins away from LBBMW if you set up a appointment they can do a ride in
Taking seat off bike was pretty simple first seat heat connector, four torx screws finally 2 7mm nuts,
Be careful with fuel door
 
BMW is releasing a new low seat option, it was announced today. It is supposed to be an item that we can stock. No word on exactly when we'll have it yet, but it's coming soon. Additionally, we're going to be ordering the majority of our GT's with the low seat as we are experiencing quite a few potential buyers finding the seat a little too tall. The new "standard" seat will be even higher than the standard seat is now.
 
I'm surprised at the apparent number of people with height issues. I'm 5'6" with a 29" inseam and have had no difficulty even in thin soled dress shoes or Five Fingers. I'm thinking this is something you get used to very quickly. (In my case, thinking about the seat would be to get the gel, not the lower saddle height. I had been thinking of a Russell Day Long, and may yet still do that depending on how the seat feels in another few hundred miles - I plan to use my GT for trips back and forth from SF to LA, and at first I thought I disliked the GT seat, but at 650 miles, the stock seat seems to be breaking in noticeably.)
 
I'm 5'10, 30" inseam and I find the seat on the tall side, it's about the same as my RT 1200. Pretty tall for a scooter, nice to see they'll be a choice in the future.
 
Scooter seat 650 GT

The thing with the scooter seat is that you have to bow your legs to plant your foot on the ground. So for some you may need a slight taller inseam compared to a motorcycle. However I would have to accommodate the low seat option with less padding to being a little tippy toes as is the case right now. Hopefully after market options may include a back rest for longer trips.

Why don't we have hydraulic seat height adjuster? Just a thought! At slower speeds it automatically moves down to your chosen stop-height.
 
I think on the Russell Day Longs they traditionally make it narrower at the front so that you can slide forward and get more clearance while still maintaining that gluteus hugging shape in the rear of the seat. When I did the math I think it was going to be like a grand for the seat though! Still may do it depending on how the stock seat feels at 1000 miles (at 770 or so now) - I figure it's a pittance over the life of the bike for long distance comfort.
 
t6pilot, how did they deal with the heating system when they modified your seat? Are the wires right under the surface of the cover such that they just put the gel pad under the wiring? And has the gel been a significant improvement in comfort?
 
I'm surprised at the apparent number of people with height issues. I'm 5'6" with a 29" inseam and have had no difficulty even in thin soled dress shoes or Five Fingers. I'm thinking this is something you get used to very quickly. I plan to use my GT for trips back and forth from SF to LA, and at first I thought I disliked the GT seat, but at 650 miles, the stock seat seems to be breaking in noticeably.)

agree with getting used to it. good riding boots a must! will have to save my flip flops for the vespa!
 
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agree with getting used to it. good riding boots a must! will have to same my flip flops for the vespa!

:)

I'm actually thinking after another 150 mile day that I do want to upgrade the seat after all, though not for height. Breaking in did help noticeably, but not enough to make it totally comfortable to ride for a couple of hours straight. Very curious to hear if the gel saddle helps with this, or if I should just go all the way with the Russell. (Note that in my case, I can't hold it against the GT, I've ended up going with a custom on every street bike I've owned - guess I have a delicate rear end. ;) )
 
:)

I'm actually thinking after another 150 mile day that I do want to upgrade the seat after all, though not for height. Breaking in did help noticeably, but not enough to make it totally comfortable to ride for a couple of hours straight. Very curious to hear if the gel saddle helps with this, or if I should just go all the way with the Russell. (Note that in my case, I can't hold it against the GT, I've ended up going with a custom on every street bike I've owned - guess I have a delicate rear end. ;) )

I put my old Airhawk seat pad on the seat and it works perfect for me.
 
I've got an appt to get a Russell Day Long made in 3 weeks now, and apparently I'm not the first, will let you know how it goes!
 
Rode up and got the seat yesterday and then rode home on it. All I can say is, whoa, what a difference. I went from being fairly uncomfortable after an hour even wearing bike shorts to riding all the way home only stopping for gas once and to use the restroom, maybe scootching around once or twice, in 250 miles. Like night and day.

They also modified my seat further for my comfort after I sat on it, based on different riding positions, to increase the size of the backrest slightly so that it actually provides a little more support when I'm leaning back. I highly recommend the ride-in process for those who can do it, not only was the process and tour very cool, but I got to go ride over and do the tour at the Shasta Lake Dam & hydroelectric plant, etc.

The legs all the way forward position is now the preferred position I think, for me, and completely comfortable, I am confident I will have no problem riding back and forth to L.A. on the bike now.

I took just a few photos while I was there, showing what the seats look like under the covers including the foam they insert to adjust size in each direction, the spring they use (without the bar in it), and my seat before the cover was put on (first one in the sequence below). I'll take a pic or two of the finished bike tomorrow and post that up as well.
 

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Put another 140 miles on today and man, I love this seat. Now all I need is a cruise control, and maybe some heated clothing and/or supplemental lights, and this thing will be pretty much the ultimate touring machine.

Note that I did not have them build up the passenger portion but they easily could have done that without changing the rider seat/position at all. The used the stock backrest but built up above & around it to give a bit more back support, with the side effect of losing adjustability by virtue of the build up and covering around it (though I imagine I could have had them leave it adjustable if I'd thought this was necessary or a good idea).

They say 500-1000 miles of break-in of the seat is necessary but for my own part, it's already the best motorcycle seat I've ever been on hands down, I wish I'd known to go to these guys with previous bikes.
 

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I took just a few photos while I was there, showing what the seats look like under the covers including the foam they insert to adjust size in each direction, the spring they use (without the bar in it), and my seat before the cover was put on (first one in the sequence below). I'll take a pic or two of the finished bike tomorrow and post that up as well.

In your pictures it looks as though you had a heated seat switch for the back seat, did you have heated seats? If so did they replace the heated seat pads back on the seat.

I had a day long saddle on my old k75T and yes I rode all day long with many 1000 mile days under me.
 
The seat was $737.50 including the charge for the ride-in service and for retaining the stock heated seat setup - they use the existing heat setup for both the rider and passenger seats and it still gets toasty warm (I used it on the way home!).
 
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