So my buddy Minh had enough of his stock FJR seat that he pulled the
trigger and got Laam to create
a custom seat for him. Begin impressed with his results, I
decided to contact Laam. Then Minh told me about the horror
stories about when you contact Laam, they never return the web
request. Awe man! I has just submitted the request to
have a seat made. Going on the fact that it too my buddy
nearly two months to get a seat made, I decided to contact Bill Mayer Saddles
instead. Next thing I knew, both Laam and BMS responded to my
custom seat request. What the heck. Only one of them was
suppose to respond. Oh well, I figured that it's better to
have the seat made locally so I canceled my request with Laam.
In turn BMS gave me an appointment within a week. Wow!
That's fast.
There are some that say BMS sucks. There are other that say
BMS is wonderful. Yet others say that Laam is the best.
Some say that nobody can beat Russell. I don't know. All
I can think of is... helping USA business is good. Helping
local business is even better. Not only that, there is no
substitution for working with folks face to face. I elected to
go with BMS regardless of what the Internet says. Good, bad or
otherwise.
[ Friday - May 8, 2015 ]
So I booked Friday as a vacation day from work and headed out to
Ventura to have the seat created. I put the panniers on
because I'm riding on the Touratech not so comfortable comfort
seat. The stock GS seat is in one of the panniers. Of
all things, there is prediction of rain. OK, it's going to be
slow going so I better put on the real rain suit (BMW Pro Rain 3 suit).
The two piece is going to cause me to get wet in a heavy rain.
It's a slight bit chilly on the front but for the most part the rain
suit is doing a good job of keeping the cold at bay. The
rain... it never materialized. There were a couple of drops
here and there but it's definitely nothing to be concerned
about. I decided to stay on the 101 to get to Ventura.
It wasn't half as bad as I thought it would be. Traffic was
present but nothing to be too concerned about. By the time I
pulled off the freeway (75+ miles) I can definitely feel the
discomfort of the Touratech comfort seat. They good at
creating panniers and shocks but they suck at making seats. I
finally found BMS and to my surprise look at this sight...
It's like a fleet of BMW GS's. There is also a hex head inside
the shop. Wow! This is the total opposite of what I
thought I would see. I was half anticipating to see a lot of
cruisers around. I fee right at home here.
The process is interesting. They take my stock seat and rip
off the foam. Then they spray their foam on the seat
pan. But it's not a regular spray with foam oozing all of the
place. Instead some type of basic mold or template is
used. When the bring out the seat with the white foam, it
already has a basic seat shape to it. The stock shape is
thick. When I sit on the foam, it's tall, but it's nothing
that I'm not used to having ridden tall GS's over the last 10
years. They asked me to sit on the plane seat without a cover
and asked me if there are any hot spots. Sure enough, being a
boney butt kind of guy, I immediately felt the pressure of the seat
against my seat bone. I told the guy that working my seat and
he whipped out a Sharpy. "Point your finger to where you feel
the pressure in the seat," he said. I dig around under my butt
and identified the pressure point. I hold my finger on the
spot then he marks the pressure point. "Do it again for the
other side," he said. Look at that... perfect symmetry for the
pain in the ass points. Next he said that he can cut X's on
the point to relieve the pressure if I like. I said, "sure,
please do whatever it is that you do." When he came back,
there were two X's cut deep in the foam. He told me to go
ahead and sit on it. Sure enough, cutting the foam relieved
the pressure and now I'm comfy. "OK, why don't you take the
bike out for a test ride. Go for about 15 minutes and then
come back." he said. Sure... here I go. Not too long
after the first 5 minutes I'm noticing the foam is jamming against
my boyhood. From the bottom. I get back to the shop and
asked them trim it down a bit. I go out for another test ride
and feel a bit of the bump but it's not bothering me too much.
When I got back, Rocky (Bill) showed up. I was debating on
whether to shave it down a little more until Rocky told me that the
foam will break in further. With that I'm done and I pick out
the vinyl pattern for the seat.
$560 later, I'm done and I'm riding home taking the long way (126,
I5, 210). The 90+ miles was actually pleasant. A slight
bit of tail bone soreness but it's likely because the seat is brand
new. The break in is suppose to be around the 800-900 miles.
I easily put on 150 miles a week so it won't be long to finish the
break in.
Here it is... front seat only with basket weave.
When you sit on the seat, you immediately feel the support on the
sides.
If I had known the BMS seat was like this, I would have never even
bothered with the Touratech seat.
To those that thing BMS is garbage, you're wrong. The seat is
awesome. To those that say BMS is really good, I concur.
For the Laam folks, I like the local nature of the seat. The
others that say Russell is the best, you might be right, but I still
have to fuel the bike after 200 miles anyway.
Written on: June 9, 2015
Last modified: June 9, 2015
