Now There’s The Rub

One of the first things I changed on my R1200GS is the saddle.  For me the stock saddle was literally a pain in the A.  Rich O’Connor, of Rich’s Custom Seats, had already reworked my K1200LT saddle and it was a great improvement to a saddle that wasn’t that bad to begin with.  When I took my R1200GS in I was also looking for something other than a simple black saddle.  I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted but I had a couple of ideas.   I told Rich I was looking to have the saddle colors flow from the yellow and silver coloring of the gas tank.  I also wanted vinyl rather than leather to reduce the upkeep a little. He initially didn’t think he had a yellow vinyl that would work but then he remembered some special order material he had from a custom car project.  He brought it out and I wasn’t initially sure it was going to look that good.  He brought out the silver vinyl he had in mind and he said he thought it would look great.  Of course Rich was right and the results speak for themselves.  I also had him add a seat heater which I wired up during my major mod session.  I joked with Rich at the time that he had certainly pimped my ride .  He also re-covered my Bakup back rest to match the saddle. 

When I took the GS in to have the saddle done I did not yet have the Micatech side cases shown in the pictures.  After installing them I discovered that the left side case rubbed the corner of the saddle.  Yesterday after work I needed to go to Ride West BMW to pick up a pair of Gerbing heated socks.  Rich’s shop is just a short distance away so I thought I would drop by there first and set up an appointment to fix the saddle. 

I showed up about 4:00 PM and I asked Rich to look at my saddle.  I told him there was not a workmanship issue because it was my fault for having the saddle done before I put on my side cases.  He took all of 5 seconds looking at it and said to bring the bike into the shop.  I must have had a funny look on my face because he followed up with "It will only take a few minutes, it’s a quick fix.".  It took about 30 minutes and he refused to take any money from me.  He said "It’s part of the gig."  Customer satisfactions is demonstrably Rich’s number one priority. 

Here are a couple more pictures.

I have already done some rides locally and even a little off road dual sport action with the re-worked saddle.  The difference is like night and day.  Throw a sheepskin butt pad on and this is now an all day long riding machine.

I thought I would slip in a picture or two with all the mods installed.

This picture shows the notch I needed to cut out to accommodate the Hella Micro DE mounts.  This also shows the bracket I made to move the lights forward four inches.

It’s getting late so th-th-th-That’s all folks.