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Tracer seats


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On 6/10/2019 at 12:40 PM, upshift said:

I have a Bagster on my '15 FJ and it's been great. Moved over from a Yamaha Comfort which was okay but the Bagster is definitely better.

I'm sure Bagster makes a model for a Tracer GT but am not sure whether a '15 would fit on a '19.

This response is rather late, but... I have it from Yamaha HQ that the GT seat does NOT fit earlier bike models.   As at Aug 13th BAGSTER is close to having a GT seat available, but Europe pretty much closes for business during August, hence the delays, as new seat-pans (bases) are required.   I'm waiting - it will be well worth while judging from my earlier very satisfied and comfortable experiences with the brand.... 

Riding a fully-farkled 2019 MT-09 Tracer 900 GT from my bayside home in South East Queensland, Australia.   

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1 hour ago, stgolfer said:

I spent a day over at Sargent a couple of weeks ago so they could use my bike to develop a new seat for the GT.

They might've had it done already, but it's different enough from the FJ that they had to have a couple of new parts for the seat pan machined.

I would expect they should have it ready within a couple weeks.

I wonder why they are so late to the game??  The GT was in dealers showrooms in June of last year. 

***2015 Candy Red FJ-09***

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1 hour ago, betoney said:

I wonder why they are so late to the game??  The GT was in dealers showrooms in June of last year. 

Demand - or lack thereof.

Riding a fully-farkled 2019 MT-09 Tracer 900 GT from my bayside home in South East Queensland, Australia.   

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1 hour ago, betoney said:

I wonder why they are so late to the game??  The GT was in dealers showrooms in June of last year. 

They couldn't get their hands on a bike. Dealers were selling them as fast as they were getting them in, so they couldn't get a loaner.

When their local dealer told them they weren't ordering any more, they started looking for a bike to use. I volunteered.

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2003 ST1300A,  2017 PCX-150,  2019 Tracer 900 GT

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I have only had my GT ten days or so but three outings totalling 700 miles convince me the Standard seat is not comfortable.

I have had a sheepskin cover on it for 400 of those miles and it has not helped.

For my Tiger800 I bought a cheap second hand seat,  took the cover off, scalped out "foam" and inserted a gel block and stapled the cover back. That worked.

No source of a cheap GT seat but I am reluctant to attack the new seat --- despite it being uncomfortable.

Definitely Rock and a Hard place !

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5 hours ago, flyfifer said:

I have only had my GT ten days or so but three outings totalling 700 miles convince me the Standard seat is not comfortable.

I have had a sheepskin cover on it for 400 of those miles and it has not helped.

For my Tiger800 I bought a cheap second hand seat,  took the cover off, scalped out "foam" and inserted a gel block and stapled the cover back. That worked.

No source of a cheap GT seat but I am reluctant to attack the new seat --- despite it being uncomfortable.

Definitely Rock and a Hard place !

 Wait a little while used seats will show up on Ebay.

He who dies with the most toys wins.

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Sargent update Aug 15:

Tracer 900 / 900 GT 2019+

COMING SOON!  Currently in Research & Development and slated for a late August / early September 2019 release. (During a recent fitting, we found another adjustment that required another part be designed and produced.)

Edited by R.C.
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If you think the GT seat is uncomfortable on long trips, you should sit on the FZ-07 seat.  I bought an FZ-07 to add to the fleet 2 weeks ago.  The FZ-07 seat is only good for about 100 miles before it gets hard and uncomfortable.  I just ordered the Seat Concepts kit for it and will give that a shot.  It has to be better.  I added Givi V37 side cases and a V46 trunk with Admore lighting on all cases.  I haven't finished the installation of the side case lights yet, but will accomplish that task soon.  I can live with the stock GT seat.  It's just fine for now.

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19 hours ago, R.C. said:

Sargent update Aug 15:

Tracer 900 / 900 GT 2019+

COMING SOON!  Currently in Research & Development and slated for a late August / early September 2019 release. (During a recent fitting, we found another adjustment that required another part be designed and produced.)

I hope they are addressing the downward slope of the seat.  That alone would make it much more comfortable.  

There is nothing like spending a day riding with friends in the grip of a shared obsession.

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I have just covered 1000 miles or so over four days, (ferry from Cairnryan, around a fair bit of Ireland and back - most of it in torrential rain).

To mitigate the discomfort of the seat I had the sheepskin cover crudely fixed to the seat and the piece of 20mm gel between the two.

Definite improvement, so I might bite the bullet and DIY a gel seat.

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I just covered ~4000 kilometers in the last couple of weeks. Sargent seat was not yet available, and I was NOT about to ride that much with the stupid stock seat. I did that last year and it was horrible. The worst part for me was sliding into the tank, because the stock seat slopes forward to the seat. Very bad IMHO. Having to correct your seating position every 5-10 minutes gets tedious when you ride the whole day, many days in a row.

So I bought the Yamaha OEM Comfort Seat. Just trying it on the bike, it immediately felt worse(!). Like the seat was split in two with a line down the middle. Felt like the two things on the seat was high as mountains. :)
IMG_0397.thumb.JPG.39db48d461c203395fa67d755ae31c2d.JPG

Something had to happen, so I took home the seat anyway, and started taking of the cover. This is what I found:

 

IMG_0402.thumb.JPG.445a0c9259ee3d49ec019fb027d5c42d.JPG

I simply can't understand the reasoning behind this! The low part makes the foam so thin that, after a couple of hours riding, you can feel the metal hardware used for locking the seat to the bike! It also makes the seat uncomfortable IMHO. WTF Yamaha!

 

I don't have any pictures of it, but I went out and bought some seat foam (50kg, quite dense but not completely hard as wood) and with a thin box cutter hobby knif blade (https://i.imgur.com/73ufw18.jpg) I cut out a triangle and mounted it on the seat. It's not perfect, but it almost feels like the seat is flat, like I wanted.

The two weird "lines" can also be seen in the picture where I have taken off the cover. It feels like there's just some cotton inside it. It's not gel (thank god) and it doesn't hold heat better than other areas of the seat (as gel would). I might try to put on another cover without those weird lumps, but as of now, I'm quite pleased with the seat. It doesn't slope and push me into the tank, it's a bit taller than the stock seat which gives better comfort for the knees/legs and it's quite comfortable.
I drove 500km every day for 8 days in a row and it worked fine. Much better than the stock seat.

 

I might buy a Sargent Cycle Seat when it comes out, but I will definitely wait for reviews before throwing money at it.

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So, from your pic, the foam on the comfort seat is presumably thicker where your bum cheeks sit on the seat and the "groove" up the middle is perhaps some attempt at venting. ????

Where did you put your triangle of high density foam ?

Did you cut away Yamaha foam ??

Just trying to understand exactly what you did.

Thanks for sharing.

 

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For me the stock seat is not too bad.  I guess every backside is different.  I can do a day of local riding with friends which is usually 170 to 200 miles and be fairly comfortable, but we usually stop a few times for fuel, water etc.   I could tell that anything longer might be a challenge.  Did a three day solo trip into the mountains.  Had a pair of padded cycle shorts on under my leathers and at about 400 miles on day one it started to get pretty uncomfortable.

I plan on pulling the trigger on a Sargent as soon as they are available and will share my impressions once I have put some miles on it.

There is nothing like spending a day riding with friends in the grip of a shared obsession.

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Also late to the game on this one.  

I contemplated a Corbin as they are 35-40 minutes away for a ride in. I got no reply.  As I was stewing about that I started looking for other seats. I was extremely happy with the Sargent on my Vstrom, but Sargent wasn't even close to building a seat yet.  So I started looking for customer seats that I could ride into as I wanted to try and minimize any rise in the seat height.

In NorCal you have the option of Russel (which definately won't drop the seat height).  Rick Mayer closed in a scandel years ago.  Bill Mayer (jr) is in Ventura and then I found out about Seth Laam.

I was told by some NorCal ADV riders that were extremely happy with Seth that he barely can keep up with email and it is best to call him during business hours.   So I attempted emailing with a request for a ride in appt.  Seth gave me his cell number and so I called him.  Boom Seth Answered, asked what I wanted gave me an estimate and told me to call back if I wanted an appt.  I did just that and set up a ride in time.

I arrived at Seth's at 9 a.m. (5 hour drive to Redding) and Seth was already deep into a mail order seat.  As we chatted and he started on my seat his phone kept ringing and he kept answering.  He told pretty much everyone to call him as he didn't really have time to follow up with emails.

When I say this guy was doing 2 things at once, he was. Like a master.  Building my seat while answering calls.  He did a test fit on my seat, then finished up the sewing.  I was out of there by 1 p.m.

I won't post pics as my seat looks just like the ones posted here.  So far I'm happy with it and the custom process. I'm thrilled I got to keep the two piece seat (Corbin's pan is a one piece fiberglass seat)

Seth was taught by the Mayers (who sold the original business to Russell Day long) so you are getting all that same knowledge in a small business package.

Moral of the story.  Seth Laam is a great seat builder, a one man show.  Keep emailing. Eventually he will give you his Cell phone and you will be able to get in touch with him at will.

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