I do not own a Russel Day-Long but I have been researching. Their website states the amount the seat raises you depends on your physical size. If you are not tall, the seat will initially feel higher but will settle back to near stock height when broken in. If you are very tall, the seat height may be increased to improve rider ergonomics.

From the day-long website FAQs:

Q. I’ve heard that a “Day-Long” Saddle is about an inch higher than my stock seat. Is this always true?

A. I have difficulty relating to the question in terms of inches of seat height…. there are just too many variables involved, i.e., are we measuring the surface of the seat while the foam is at rest? or when it’s compressed by the rider’s weight? Are we measuring relative to the ground? If so, is the bike’s suspension compressed by the weight of a normal load? Height measurements taken at different points across the top surface of a “Day-Long” Saddle will normally vary by 1.5 inches or more, at what point are we measuring?, etc.

The real question should not be how high is the seat, rather, “will I be able to reach the ground adequately?” More often than not, especially with a shorter legged rider, ground reach is limited more by the width of the seat than it is by the relative height of the seat. For these reasons, in my opinion, to say one has gained or lost an inch or fraction of an inch in seat height is largely irrelevant.

Because of the design of a “Day-Long” Saddle the rearward part, I call it the “wing” area, of the saddle is quite wide. This is, incidentally, at the very heart of the reason why it can provide so high a degree of riding comfort. The wide “wings” are there to provide outer buttock support so that less body weight will be concentrated toward the center. The forward part of the saddle is made as narrow as the underlying seat pan and motorcycle frame will permit, in other words, about the same width as the stock seat. Because of the ground reach impairment that is imposed by this width factor it is generally unrealistic to expect much if any improvement in ground reach from a “Day-Long” compared to a stock seat.

On the other hand, a rider’s ground reach is usually not degraded by the “Day-Long”, with this one proviso: It may become necessary, especially for a shorter legged rider, to develop the habit of moving his crotch forward on the saddle so as to straddle it at its narrowest point in order to achieve adequate ground reach. In other words, stand up out of the pocket of the saddle when coming to a stop. Settle back into the pocket again once you’re underway.

For sure, we’ve had some extreme cases, riders with very short inseams, and large, heavy thighs, that we’ve bought seats back from. A rider’s attitude and his kind of riding sometimes has a lot to do with it too. Some customer’s have said in effect “I don’t care if I can reach the ground or not, I want to be comfortable when I’m going down the road!” Obviously, it would be more of a problem if you only rode in heavy stop and go traffic than it would if you only rode long highway stretches.

But back to your question, no, this is not always true. Remember, each “Day-Long” Saddle is made to order to fit the particular individual rider or riders. For some long legged riders on lower seated bikes we actually increase the seat height in order to achieve better all around posture.