Customize

Intimate

A motorcycle is a much more intimate mode of transportation than a car or truck.  You aren’t surrounded by glass and metal, protected by seatbelts and a crash zone.  You can feel and smell, see and hear things you just can’t when you’re in a car, even if you have the windows down. There’s also the lowered stability of only two wheels, the fact that you ride a motorcycle with your whole body, not just your right foot and a hand (or knee) or two, the decreased visibility, so many reasons.  I ride because I love the freedom, the individuality yet connection to other riders, and the feeling I get when I ride. I think that’s probably true for most riders. I find, and others certainly must judging by their bikes, that this makes adding touches, things that add to comfort, convenience, and aesthetics so important.  My bike, while NEARLY perfect, needed a couple of things to make it ABSOLUTLEY PERFECT.

Insurance

The first thing I wanted was basically an insurance policy, crash bars. If you don’t know what these are, they are basically metal pipes or bars that cover parts of and stick out from your bike. This keeps those expensive engine covers and fairings safe from damage should you drop the bike.  And let’s face it, this bike weighs a bit over 615 lbs.  Fully loaded it’ll weigh even more and it’s tall, making it likely that at some point in this motorcycle’s life, I’ll drop it.  For my bike, they also make crash bars for the saddlebags, which is good because they are also very expensive. The bars make sure they are the part of your bike that hits the ground, should it fall over. I thought this incredibly important, and they were the first on my list to get. I did a bunch of internet research (I love research) and found the Illium Works bars were what I wanted.

Crash bars on the engine and the saddlebags.  The highway pegs are attached to the engine crash bars.

Extras for comfort

While shopping for the engine bars, I discovered they also make bar backs and highway pegs. The bar backs, or handlebar risers, raise your handlebars up and move them back closer to you when you ride.  Remember my shoulder trouble? I thought these could help with that, and even if they couldn’t, it would make for a more comfortable ride. The highway pegs are foot pegs that are placed up and out in front of you. This helps you change positions while you’re riding, increasing comfort on long trips. I thought originally thought to space the purchases of these things out, but the crash bars were the most expensive parts and I wanted those right away so I decided to order everything at once.

Bar backs, also known as handlebar risers.

Luckily for me, Illium Works is located in Grass Valley, CA which isn’t terribly far from me, and they do installation, so I made an appointment. I rode the bike up to Grass Valley on a Friday and in about 3 hours I was hooked up with the front and rear crash bars, bar backs, highway pegs and a kickstand plate, which makes the part of the kickstand that touches the ground bigger. Now at least if I accidentally (is there any OTHER way?) dropped my bike, it would be minimally damaged.

The butt meets the seat

Another thing I really wanted was a more comfortable seat. BMW might be known for luxury and performance, but they did not do a good job with their low seat. Now I have some pretty serious padding installed on my backside, so you’d think anything would be comfortable to me, but after a couple of hours, my bum was complaining and after several hours, like on the ride home from Oregon, it hurt!

Preferences

I had a Corbin seat on Thelma, and loved it, but every seat is different.  And rider preferences are different.  Some people love a Corbin, some hate them, some love Sargent, some Russell Day Long, and so it goes.  My main concern was comfort, but almost equally, not increasing the height of the bike.  Even a half an inch, small as that seems, could make a difference.  Corbin is located in Hollister, CA and Russell is located in Shasta Lake, CA, both easily reached from where I live.  I broke out the computer again to research the seats.  Fun times!

Russell builds a comfortable seat on top of the current seat.  This probably wouldn’t work for me, as if they built it on the existing seat, it would make the current seat higher.  Sargent makes some good seats that my friends swear by. Motorcycle seats are expensive (somewhere between $600-$1000), and I wasn’t sure about ordering an untested seat, that may not work.  After reaching out to Sargent, it seemed likely that the seat height would increase with the addition of a Sargent seat.  I rang up Corbin and they assured me the height would not increase with the addition of a Corbin seat, and they are custom made and fitted.  I made an appointment and a plan to ride to Hollister, CA, where Corbin is located.  This would be a ride of a couple of hundred miles.

Take a ride

I am fortunate to get every other Friday off from work, and made the plan to cruise down to Hollister on Friday.  Corbin wanted me there at 8:00 am, and, given it would take me more than 3 hours to get there, I was leaving early!  While I tried to get out of the house by 5:00 am, I missed that by about 20 minutes.  I hit the road in nearly perfect weather and really looked forward to the ride.  Any time you get to ride your bike somewhere, it’s a great time.  I gassed up in Marysville and opened it up.  I really like the sixth gear on the R1250 RT.  It’s the first time I’ve driven a bike with a sixth gear, and it makes things much nicer, particularly when your right hand weighs about 894 pounds….

I ran into some heavy road construction traffic in Sacramento, but after that, it was smooth sailing.  Coming down the backside of Pacheco Pass and hitting the fog definitely woke me up, it was cold!  At least I got to check out my heated grips!  They work, and they get hot.  I didn’t try the heated seat, because it just wasn’t THAT cold.  I made it to Corbin around 8:30 and rolled into their garage.  The first thing the tech told me was the seat would definitely be higher.  I was crushed!  This wouldn’t work.  He told me we could try it and I could see what I thought.  He brought in a “blank”, which looks like a seat, with no cover on it, just the foam.  He put it on my bike, put a leather pad on top, and told me to take it for a ride.

So nice!

Heaven!  It was so comfortable!  It may have been a bit higher, but it was not that noticeable.  The tech though had watched me back the bike out of the garage and said he could cut the foam down.  He checked my butt, my seat, and took the custom seat off and went to work.  The cool thing about Corbin is the seat is completely custom.  You get to pick the seat color, the trim color, the side color, the stitching style and color, the logo, everything.  And, the seat is designed for you.  I had my seat and options picked out, so I passed them on and read my book.  The build wasn’t incredibly quick, it took about five and a half hours, but it was worth it.

My beautiful Corbin seat!

Glenn and Becky drove my Prius down to pick up the original seat, so we had lunch, hung out until the seat was done, paid, and saddled up for the ride home.  What a difference the seat can make.  I am convinced it is a safety as well as comfort issue.  When you are uncomfortable, you’re thinking about that, not focusing on what you need to in order to ride safely.  It was a wonderful ride, although it got hot, about 102 degrees.  I fully tested the seat, as well as the bar backs and highway pegs.  So nice.  We made it home and I had no sore bum, and a gorgeous seat that looked amazing on my bike.

Perfect

Now I would just have to ride it and enjoy it!