sore bum?

[moon]

for a loooong time now i've been wanting to do something about the seat on the tralp. I can't sit on it for more than an hour without a certain amount of pain. I've looked at getting a new seat made (400€!) or getting the one I've got re stuffed (300€).

Well I at long last found something I thought would allow me to do the job myself, within my very limited budget.

A while ago I grabbed the opportunity to pick up a 2nd hand transalp seat of a froggy transalp site for 50€ so's that I wouldn't have to immobilise the bike if I fubar'd the seat... (no it was no more comfortable than the existing one, I did try it...)

Whilst strolling round "Decathlon" the other day looking for some dirt cheap trousers for work, I stumbled into the horsey section & found a selection of "saddle pads" designed to go betwixt saddle & horse to avoid discomfort to the horse over long distances. Some of them looked very comfy with a honeycomb silicone pad doubled with a lambswool cover for 70 odd € which I spent some time trying to imagine a way of fitting it to the bike securely without it looking like I was riding a dead sheep...

further down the shelves was stuff more in line with the size of my wallet...

this one for 9€


its a medium density foam sandwich, about 25mm thick.

with the offending article


the wee tool bottom right is a "staplepullerouterer" which I borrowed from work (0€)

I turned the seat over & pulled the staples from the underside to remove the vinyl cover completely.


positioned the foam pad


I hope I've got it where I want it, it's a bit difficult to work out exactly where I sit on the seat when it's not on the bike & I wanted to try & keep the seat's original line & cover so I couldn't mess with it too much as the tralp seat has a step up about halfway back, so I had to fit the pad sufficiently forward of thet so's not to have to cut into the rise, but far enough aft for my fat arse to sit on. which is kinda the whole point of the excercise...



I decided that trying to cut the forward curves into the existing seat foam was going to be too complicated, & so cut the saddle pad


repositioned it & marked out the seat for cutting. Then attacked it with a sharp knife.
I you've never cut this sort of foam, you need a REALLY SHARP knife, preferrably one with a curved blade, otherwise the point simply pulls holes in the surface, & you cut along a line, 2 or 3 passes with the blade, with very little pressure. Once the surface is cut, you pull the cut open with one hand & slice the bottom of the cut with the knife untill you've reached the required depth. You end up with little bits of foam bluddy EVERYWHERE, or at least I did, but I didn't take any pictures of it cos it wasn't funny... despite what my daughters might tell you...



I cut downwards along the edge of the seat first, & then in from the side, allowing me to remove the "corner" peices as in the pic above.
this allowed me to cut horizontally through the seat at about the right depth to fit the new foam pad & remove the foam in one peice leaving a "fairly" even surface underneath. I then pinched out the foam along the edges to give a rounder profile to allow the new foam piece to bend into the shape easier.




I used a general purpose materiel adhesif as glue (3€) & a luggage strap around the front curve of the seat to hold it in place whilst the glue cured


I also trimmed the edges of the new piece with a pair of scissors.

I left it 48 hours for the glue to cure & took the strap off. Despite my best efforts, there were some fairly big gaps between the forward & aft edges of the new foam & the original seat foam. The seat cover being fairly thin, I thought it best to find something to help even out the gaps & lumps a bit.

GOT IT! an old sleeping mat that's no longer used, to cover the whole top of the seat (0€)


I didn't glue this mat on (cos I had no glue left) & reckoned that the seat cover will hold it sufficiently.


Put the seat cover over the top, taking care that the blue mat didn't wrinkle or pull out of place. With the extra thickness (blue sleeping mat) I had to pull the seat cover fairly hard into place & staple it back onto the seat base, again taking care to pull it evenly so's not to make wrinkles.

job jobbed!




I just need to fit it to the bike & go ride for a few hours to see if it was all worth it or not.

Total cost?

2nd hand seat 50€
horsey saddle pad 9€
glue 3€
camping mat 0€
staplegetterouterer & stapler "borrowed" from work 0€

62€ + a couple of hours work.

[StumpyFingers]

Looking good, but I can see a couple of wrinkles.

[Dee Duble Yuh]

Interesting - I wonder if it helps? BTW for anyone thinking of doing something similar, an electric carving knife does a good job of cutting foam.

[Steve T]

Ace DIY job at a very reasonable price.

Hope it provides the comfort you desire.

I got a local furniture upholsterer to re-foam & cover a spare seat that I have. I asked him to create a flatter, raised area on the passengers seating area. Cost me £25 and turned out well. The missus doesn't slide forward as much during normal riding conditions, which was a problem with the original contoured seat.
Only down side is that the front edges are slightly pulled out due to the tension of the cover fabric, and tends to catch the inner thigh material of my trousers. Minor niggle, all things considered.

Steve T

[moon]

Looking good, but I can see a couple of wrinkles.

yeah, I'm gonna use some retinol on those...

I'll attempt a trial this week end & let you know how it goes.


(the seat, not the retinol...)

[StumpyFingers]

Would it not have been easier to gain a fat posterior, then you would have suitable padding.

[moon]

Would it not have been easier to gain a fat posterior, then you would have suitable padding.

unfortunately, when re stuffing occurred, the person in charge appears to have got somewhat disoriented & crammed the excess round the front & somewhat higher up...

[Grendel]

Cant get Pic's up at work so will look at this tonight since my seat foam is a tad compacted.

[moon]

ok, went out for an hour or so on th etralp this afternoon (blinkin' cold it was too!) & first impressions are good. I was expecting the seat to be more "squashy" than the original but on the contrary it seems firmer, the effective seat hight is very slightly higher which is a bonus I hadn't counted on & after an hour... no sore bum! It was too cold for a longer test (-1°c ish & a little sleet then snow then rain then sun again) but so far I'm pleased with the result, even if , esthetically it looks a little... erm... 2nd hand. the seat edges are less well defined than the original.

[StumpyFingers]

You could have tried a piles cushion.