Lowered Seat

The finished lowered seat with faux sheepskin cover šŸ‘
The finished lowered seat with faux sheepskin cover šŸ‘

Homemade - Me

Cost - $50 AUD

www.bunnings.com.au

I'm 5"5' and am vertically challenged. My inseam is 28" and while the CRF250 Rally has a modest seat height of 32.5 (895mm) plus a lot of sag at the factory setting, it doesn't give me lots of confidence at low speed. I don't want to sacrifice ride height and I don't mind sitting on a plank so I decided to lower the seat.

I did it myself. You can buy pre-lowered seats for $300 and my local shop offered to cut the seat down for $150. I used a bread knife and a powered Ozito stapler from Bunnings for $60.

I lowered the front of the seat by about 1.5 inches at the front and tapered it to the rear. It's the most I could get out of it without the plastic mould of the seat or staples digging into my butt. It came out well.

It's hard as a rock. I have the faux sheepskin cover that Callum, the original owner, stole off a postie bike. It makes a world of difference for highways. Interestingly, I don't care much about the seat being hard up-front. I only go there when stopping or hard cornering and I'm usually shifting weight anyway. I stand up and will plonk on the sheepskin on stretches.

The lower seat height gives a lot more confidence stopping. That's about it. I've been riding bike bikes most of my life and to be honest, it doesn't make a massive difference to how I ride. It does make the handlebars sit higher in relation to my body. This gives me slight upper back pain and I need some straight bars to make up the difference in seat height.

The original seat on the Honda CRF250 Rally The finished lowered seat from another angle

Installation

  1. Take the seat off the bike
  2. Remove the staples from the underside of the seat
  3. Remove the seat cover
  4. Put the seat without the cover back the bike
  5. Sit on the motorbike and mark where your butt and crotch will likely be
  6. Get off the bike and push down on the foam along the seat to get an idea of where the ribs/valleys of the plastic mould is and how much foam you're willing to sacrifice
  7. Use a marker to draw a curved line from front to back based on your above measurements (do the same for both sides)
  8. Cut away half the foam to the line using the bread knife
  9. Check how you went and if you'd like to keep going
  10. Remove more until you're happy but leave a little bit for finishing
  11. Finish with sandpaper. Note: you can leave more foam and taper the edges. A narrower seat will give you more length without sacrificing comfort
  12. Take the seat off the bike
  13. Put the cover back over the seat
  14. Optional: heat the plastic seat to help the staples go in
  15. Pull the cover tight and staple the ends first
  16. Staple the sides
  17. Done

Pulling the stapes from the seat cover with the leatherman can opener Marking the seat before cutting Cutting the seat with a breadknife Finished cutting and sanding the seat down

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