First long ride and bike is awesome, seat is terrible!

[Chicago_Cheech]

I went with the el-cheapo solution and had the factory seat restuffed with far better foams and whatnot. I sent my rider & passenger to Spencer's seat mods before 2014. Made a huge difference. GF likes it too.

[Lunker]

I bought the factory gel seat and could not tell the difference. I broke down and ordered a Russel. I am really looking forward to getting it!

[redjay]

I bought the factory gel seats for my Voyager. Complete waste of money.
Ended up sending the stock seats to Daylong and sold the bike 2 years later with the gel seats on. Sold the Daylongs after the bike sold.

[Snake Ranch]

Originally Posted by redjay

I fail to understand why a motorcycle manufacturer cannot make a seat that would make 90% of its riders happy right out of the showroom.

A sales person told me the manufactures do this on purpose. When you are going around "kicking tires", you are generally not riding, and your feet are on the ground, or if you go for a ride it is short. Sooo they design the seat to be comfortable on the showroom floor.

I went with a Corbin saddle and have not been disappointed. I took a picture of a Goldwing saddle to the Corbin shop and asked for something like the picture.

[schoeney]

You can do what I did with my Nomad and waste 5 years trying every cheap fix you can think of (gel pad, air hawk, bead rider, sheepskin, etc) or just bite the bullet early on like I did with my Honda...bought the Russell. What a game changer!

[hayes]

I am having my stock seat redone by a local shop. Ride in, they shape it to my beautiful butt, and ride out the same day. I am going to get a reshape and heated seat installed on the Nomad. I had a Mustang on my 900 and it was good. Did about 12000 miles on it. It was taller and farther forward than stock. Put an Ultimate on the 2k before I traded it and it was awesome. Significantly better than stock. I just don't have 600 bucks to drop on the Ultimate right now.

A friend had her 900 seat modified by the local shop and it was a huge improvement for her. Total cost will be about 300 for the stocker reshape with heat. I will report back when I get it completed.

[Peg]

Looking back through this thread now, from the start... I'd say that if I had a Vaq, I would have been entirely happy with the Mustang seat. That's simply because it's prettier. My butt much prefers the Russell, but if I had a Vaq - I think it would be important that it looked right too.

A Russell looks OK on the Voyager, but I'm not confident at all that it would suit the Vaq's much cooler image quite the same way?

I still have my Mustang seat somewhere... I'm going to take it to someone to rebuild the passenger portion to keep her a little happier.

It's nice to have a choice, and the Mustang rider's backrest is waaaay better than Russell's.

[schoeney]

Depends on how one uses their bike.

Looks don't mean much when you have ridden 200 miles and still have 400 to go.

But if all you do is go to bike night or bar hopping then I guess form wins over function.

[CBO Vaquero]

Originally Posted by Chicago_Cheech

I went with the el-cheapo solution and had the factory seat restuffed with far better foams and whatnot. I sent my rider & passenger to Spencer's seat mods before 2014. Made a huge difference. GF likes it too.

I e-mailed Spencer's and he replied back that he has no info on the Vaquero and would not do the seat without riding one himself.

Originally Posted by Lunker

I bought the factory gel seat and could not tell the difference. I broke down and ordered a Russel. I am really looking forward to getting it!

I contacted Russell about a seat and was ready to spend the money and go this route but the 5 month wait steered me away. I understand they are busy but this season would be over before it arrived.

Originally Posted by Snake Ranch

A sales person told me the manufactures do this on purpose. When you are going around "kicking tires", you are generally not riding, and your feet are on the ground, or if you go for a ride it is short. Sooo they design the seat to be comfortable on the showroom floor.

I went with a Corbin saddle and have not been disappointed. I took a picture of a Goldwing saddle to the Corbin shop and asked for something like the picture.

I ended up going this route as well and ordered a Corbin. After speaking with several people there they come up with ideas that will help me. It's currently being built and it should be here in a month, can't wait!!

[schoeney]

Corbin has lots of happy customers too. Good luck and hope you get many years of comfy rides in the new saddle.