Hi Everyone,

I've finally been able to spend some time on my new seat that I got custom made from C&C at the end of last years season. I really do have to give a big shout out to C&C and Shad for being so patient as I decided on what options worked well together. I had a lot of emails with him back and forth about all of the options to find what would work best and add to the look of my bike. They have so many options to choose from with material, stitch patterns, seat position, padding, etc and the website is well laid out to show what the different options look like. I also found it useful to go to their facebook page and see other customer seats.

I ended up going with:
- Wide Solo seat w/Large backrest and the #2 medium passenger pillion
- Custom fit 2" back from stock
- Comfort Gel in both seat and Passenger Pillion
- Large sissy bar pad
- BMW Black Carbon Fiber vinyl with semi perforated vinyl accent bands
- Smooth black vinyl piping
- Shark Gray Thread
- Custom Embroidered Canadian Flags on each side of the seat

I'm really happy with the outcome and the price. here are some pics, let me know what you think. Extra thanks for making the custom Canadian flag for a northern neighbour. I saw a lot of american flags on other seats they made and liked the look.

I decided to get my seat done first with help from this forum where people recommended doing it before bars and foot controls. I'm glad I did because this seat really changes the position and feel of the bike. I was pretty set on doing extended controls but with the new seat, I'm not so sure I need that anymore as I feel a lot more stretched out. For reference, i'm 6'4". This seat sits 1" lower and 2" back from stock.

I'll try and get some better pictures soon. Have some more mods coming up too.

cheers

 

Looks GREAT!

 

damn that's nice!

 

They make a great seat... Made a big difference on my long days in the saddle as well.

 

nice stitch work. looks very well made

 

very Nice. Enjoy.

 

Looks great!

C&C saddles are one of the best kept secrets! Not everyone and their brother has one.

YB

 

That seat looks fantastic!

I feel your pain right now with deciding on colors, materials, stitch patters, etc. I'm trying to put together a Solo and SportTour for a Road Glide. It's so hard and every time I feel like I have it figured out, I see something else and change my mind all over again!

How do you like the gel? And how'd you decide between leather and vinyl? I've never had gel before, and I usually lean towards leather as it shows its own patina. But vinyl is more durable, wears better, handles the sun better, and its cheaper too.

Ugh...decisions decisions!

 

Love mine also. I have have it for sale in the touring classified its a solo seat if anyone is looking

 

Haha, Yes I know exactly what you are going through. My suggestion is to just go with your gut on what you feel will look right but I'd be happy to add a few more details of what led me to my choices. I tend to be very detailed when making a decision on these kinds of things so I spent a lot of time combing through my options. Given the money I spent on my bike, and the amount I was going to put towards a custom seat, I felt the added time was worth it. I am not going to say the seat was cheap, but for the custom options and all of the adders I got, it was a good price. Also, If you just went super basic and wanted the seat more for a better feel than all the added extra looks, their standard option is very reasonably priced

- I was first looking at the seats that have the passenger seat added on (2-up) but I saw a lot of pictures of people with the detachable pavilion. C&C said that the pavilion is essentially the same padding as the 2-up seats but it has the added benefit of taking off the pavilion for a different look with the solo seat. The detachable pavilions also have a few different sizes to choose from where I am pretty sure the 2-ups only have the associated size with the different design. I changed my mind from the sport touring to the wide solo with pavilion to give me more options but to but honest, I like the look of the seat so much that I never remove the pavilion. I think it actually looks just as good or better with it on. So if I were to do it again, I would probably go with the sport tour, or even the larger tour special which has a little more padding for the wife.

Also, I ended up going with the wide solo after reading a lot of reviews on here and figured it wouldn't be bad to have the extra width. The one thing I noticed with the seat when I first put it on is that it did not have the same side support that the stock seat had. I felt like I wasn't "stuck" in the seat as much. I am 6'4" and about 245lbs so i'm a big guy but don't have a huge *** haha. I could see the wide solo being better for a more wide set person. I cannot say for sure, but I now wonder if the standard solo seat would have provided a little more side support by being more narrow so I would ask C&C about this when you talk with them. That being said, now that I have ridden on the seat a lot more, I have no issues with it and don't feel as loose in the seat as when I first made the change.

- It's hard to say if the gel makes a big difference because I don't have a non gel seat to compare it to. However, I can tell it's in there and the seat is super comfortable. I haven't been on any 6+ hour rides but the 4 hours I did the other day gave me no issues. I have heard about the concerns with cold and heat. I can tell you it has been extremely cold here and the seat has not bothered me. The 140km/h (85 mph) wind was colder than my seat would ever feel so I didn't notice it even if it was cold. The heat, I can't speak to and it doesn't get as hot here as it does in the lower states but I always figured if it was a problem, i would just buy a pack of cheap white towels from costco and throw one over the seat when I park in the sun while on a ride.
Also, the wife who has a sportster 883 says the back pavilion is just as, if not more comfortable than her own seat and she has lower back issues.

- I was originally going to go with leather but C&C suggested against it. From my research, the only reason I figured leather would be better was because it is a little cooler. I live in a rainy area so they said leather would eventually show wear and would need constant care compared to the vinyl. The vinyl also has way more options for texture and colour. The BMW carbon fiber is obviously not a great comparison but the perforated vinyl is similar to leather and I think it's a great quality.

- I really liked the carbon fiber look but they have a few different variations. I believe they have a flat, gloss, BMW, and rugged. I didn't think the flat had as much pop as the others so I was leaning to the gloss or rugged. I think noticed the gloss on another vivid black bike in one of their facebook photos and thought it was too similar to the gloss of the bike so it didn't give a good enough contrast to the bike (which i think is important in the seat). I was going towards the rugged sine I was worried the vinyl would be too slick and need some added grip but C&C assured me that they are all grippy. I ended up landing on the BMW as it was cleaner, wasn't AS black as the gloss, and had a nice look. The perforated leather accents gave a nice contrast which seemed to be a popular choice based on other seats I saw.

- For the piping, I saw a lot of people had matched the piping texture to the seat or accent strip itself. C&C also recommended this as it was guaranteed to match. However, I actually went with just the standard black vinyl since I felt it gave a cleaner line around the edges and I'm glad I did. If I had a bike that had some actual colour accents on it, I would have definitely added a matching vinyl coloured piping as well as stitching.

- I was thinking of going with white stitching but ended up with the "shark" colour since white might look dirty and stand out a little too much. The shark almost looks white but is more of a super light silvery grey.

Hopefully all these points can help you make a decision more quickly

cheers