Mean City CyclesCustom Seat Alterations and Modifications
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While the gel is very comfortable, in my expereince I have found it to be temperature sensative. If I park the bike in the hot sun the gel will retain heat and fry you when you sit down. The first time it happend in Nevada I had to take out a towel to place under by butt. Then in the winter it can become like that packet of blue ice you keep in the freezer. I went out the bike on a 20 degree morning in Colorado and the seat felt like a block of ice. So I now have a lambskin pelt installed over the seat for comfort. It helps in the hot and the cold. But if I didn't have the gel, I wouldn't need the pelt.
i'd also like to know... my stock street bob seat is killin my arse. im wanting to get either a new seat or have mine modified. i initally wanted a sundowner or mustang vintage wide solo, but i like the way my stock seat looks compaired to the sundowner, however mustang aint that bad lookin though. but it would be cheaper to mod my stock seat instead of buying new, and probably more comfortable!!!
how far away is the next date to have a seat modded, but i was also thinking of waiting till winter rolls around...
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'08 Street Bob
Forward Controls, V&H Shortshots Staggered (black), Evo Stage 1 A/C, PCIII, Fatboy Headlight, 2" Jackyl Tank Lift, Loner Riser Extensions, Detachable Bags
Allen, can you explain to us the difference (in comfort) we could expect from the impact gel insert versus a full-on memory foam modification?
Gary, That is a GREAT question. Gel pads have not been a favorite of mine to install honestly and if you read any of my previous post about them you will see that I haven't been sold on the gel pad idea but I would get so many inquiries about them that we started offering them 2-3 years ago. The first ones I offered were made by a local company in NC that has a pretty good following but still I would recommend memory foam over them but the die hard gel pad guys would get them put in. A year after we started installing them I was contacted by a guy up north who makes medical gel pads for use in X-Ray rooms about working on his seat. We talked, exchanged emails and tried different formulas to come up with our own Comfort Cruizer line of gel pads. They were a lot better than the previously used gel pads but still I wasn't sold on them to be used alone. Jump ahead another year and I met the guys from Impact Gel. Holy crap, the feel they provided and impact they could take blew my mind. I met them in Panama City during the spring Thunder Beach rally. I called them on the following Monday and we became their national installer that week. These pads work just as well as memory foam but they do not require all the reshaping of the stock seat as the memory foam does which saves us some time. As you have seen first hand, the reshaping of the seat takes a lot of time to prep the seat, then shape the memory foam to the seat.
So this is my answer to your question. If you are comfortable with your current riding position, the Impact Gel is the way to go, we can keep you right where you are by inserting the Impact Gel. If you need your riding position changed, then memory foam works best because it allows us to change the riding position and tweak the seat better for each individual person's size.
The only draw back to the impact gel pads are they are very thick and are a true 1/2" gel pad where others say they insert a 1/2" gel pad they are actually 3/16-5/16's thick and I have seen some that are only a 1/4" thick. So the Impact gel pads won't work in some of the really thin seats because the gel pad is thicker than the stock foam is.
On the heat issues that some people always bring up with gel pads. First you have to remember, anything sitting in the sun is going to get HOT. There are two ways of doing things in my book, the wrong way and the right way. There are a lot of companies out there installing gel pads and they do it the wrong way. They will either remove the cover and just lay the gel pad right on top of the stock foam and put the cover back on, or they will actually cut out the area the gel pad sits in and actually insert it into the stock foam then put the cover back on. Both of these ways are the wrong way in my opinion. The way we insert the gel pads is like the second way discribed, we cut out the area the gel pad goes into to insert it into the seat. We then cover the entire seat with a 1/2 foam. What this does is act like a insallation over the gel pad to first prevent all the heat to get to the gel pad and then as a insalltion between the rider and the gel pad. At our booth in Sturgis the afternoon sun was hitting our display pretty hard, We had the Impact Gel pads with memory foam and without memory foam sitting in the sun. People would walk up and feel the pads and yes both were very hot due to the sun beating down on them and they would ask about the heat issues. I would then flip the ones with the memory foam on them over and them feel the side with the foam and everybody was amazed how cool it was and that no heat was being transferred through it. So as long as the pad is installed correctly there are not heat issues.
Sorry for the long winded post, I do get carried away sometimes.
Location: In the Pacific Northwest, a few hours east of Seattle.
Posts: 421
Damn, Allen, I saw you guys at Sturgis. Didn't you (also) have a booth at Black Hills H-D? I just didn't know it was you. (I'm getting old. It didn't click...)
Damn, Allen, I saw you guys at Sturgis. Didn't you (also) have a booth at Black Hills H-D? I just didn't know it was you. (I'm getting old. It didn't click...)
I'll drop over next year and introduce myself...
No, we wasn't set up at BHHD. Impact Gel corperate had a booth on the other end of main street from where we were but I think next year we are going to be setup beside each other because we are their national installer and they lost a lot of sales from people wanting gel pads installed and we need to be next to them so we can install them although they did tell everyone where we were some didn't feel like going to the other end of main st.
Got my Seat Back this Morning Today Allen... Awesome Job.. More than Fair Price.. Very Happy with it ... Flat foots better reaches the Hwy Pegs Better and More comfortable to boot ... No need to think about buying another now ... Thank You Sir!
Memory foam vs impact gel?
