gel seat review

[Matt Knowles]

As promised, here's my review of the Travelcade gel seat, after just getting back from a 4 day, 1000+ mile trip. (Standard disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Travelcade) On the stock seat I usually started squirming about 150 miles into a trip. I'm 6'-0" and 165 lbs for a point of reference. The Travelcade seat I found that I could go about 250 miles before reaching the same point of discomfort from the stock seat. I figure with wicking underwear and vented riding pants this distance would be greatly improved. The ride down was in pretty warm hot weather, but fortunately nothing like the previous weekend where temps were in the 110-115 range. The temps on the ride down were probably in the 90s. This did give me a chance to test one concern that someone expressed about gel seats, that being that they get painfully hot sitting out in the sun when you're parked. I didn't find this to be the case, in fact just the opposite. The Travelcade seat has the actual seating area made out of cloth, rather than vinyl, so I found it didn't heat up as much as the stock seat does. I found that the real limitation to when I needed to stop wasn't the seat, but when I just got tired battling the wind. It didn't help that it was windy most of the trip. I don't usually use the KLR on the highway, and I found that the combination of IRC GP-110's, rain grooves, and gusting winds made for an unsettling wag. Boosting the preload and damping on the rear helped but didn't eliminate it. The biggest factor appeared to be rain grooves. Our roads up in the North Coast don't use them (and we get 40-60 inches of rain a year) but the Bay Area where 12 inches is more normal, has them everywhere. Go figure. Matt Knowles - Ferndale, CA - http://www.knowlesville.com/matt/motorcycles '99 Sprint ST - for going fast and far (2CZUSA) '01 KLR650 (A15) - for exploring the North Coast backroads '97 KLX300 & '01 Lakota - for playing in the dirt '79 KZ400 - just because it was the first vehicle I ever owned