Howdy all,
Back in my dark years before I was enlightened enough to get an F6B, I had an '08 Yamaha Royal Star Tour Deluxe, which also has an Owners Forum. Just like this site, it is filled with a great bunch of guys I still keep in regular contact with. One of the old timers from that group is a fella named Rick Butler. In the Royal Star community Rick is practically a legend. He was responsible for engineering many, many improvements and upgrades to that family of bikes. One of those was customizing your seat. He preferred it if you could ride your bike and seat to him. He would tale the cover off the seat then put it back on the bike and have you sit on the seat on the bike. Much like a tailor and a custom fit suit, Rick would then take some measurements of you on the bike and talk to you about what you wanted changed. He did this for years and years and I never heard of someone that was not pleased with his work. I was one of the those VERY satisfied customers. I joked my bike would long run out of gas before I ran out of a$$. lol
As a new F6B owner like many of you, I soon determined the stock seat was not a great fit for me position of comfort wise. I knew Rick had done other seats to include HD's and Goldwing's, so I called him up to see if he was interested in trying an F6B. To my delight was actually looking for one to try out as he had some ideas.
Rick and I agreed to a time and I took the bike over. Here's what he did:
Removed the seat cover.
Removed the cellophane cover.
Reshaped the seat moving me back about an inch and a half. I am 6' 0" with a 34" inseam and felt a bit pushed too close to the bars.
Lowered me slightly.
Cut some better leg room when my feet are down while the bike is stopped since I am now farther back in the seat
Cut a divot for my tailbone.
Added 1 inch of memory foam all around for comfort.
Reapplied the cellophane cover for water protection.
Re-stapled the original seat cover with Stainless Steel Staples.
I'm adding some pictures to show the process with before and after pictures. I will say he is very meticulous in his work. The "new" seat looks very similar to the original. You have to look hard to see the angle is steeper where the butt-stop is and overall it looks a bit plusher.
It was a 1 hour 30 minute ride from my house to his and after about 45 minutes I was suffering from hot stops to the point I was scooting back to the back part of the seat, lol. The ride back was a completely different experience, I am extremely happy with the modifications and on the ride home did not need to move one bit.
Lastly, and maybe the best part, this whole process was $45.00.
The process took about 3 hours start to finish and he does it while you wait. If anyone is interested trying Rick out, feel free to pm me. I have his permission to give you his contact information. He lives in Wylie Texas. Like I said, he prefers you bring the bike, but will do seats shipped to him.
Below are some pictures of the process.
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