Rick’s Site

Anyone who has ridden a DR650 for more than an hour knows the stock seat is not really made for sitting on. There are aftermarket seats that cost a good bit of money and are comfortable. But for practically nothing you can get the same results if not better by doing it yourself.

To start with sit on the bike where you normally sit and make sure to note where your tail bone, hips and leg bones are in relation to the seat. I am tall so I sit mostly on the back half of the seat so that is where I put most of my effort. My first try I just cut the stock foam off the middle of the seat and put some foam out of the back seat of an old junk car in place of it. I made it as wide as I could with the stock vinyl cover. It worked out ok and was better than stock but I was still not able to get very far on it without feeling it.

My next attempt was a bit more radical. I started with carefully figuring out where all my bones were in relation to my normal riding position. I figured out that pressure on the inside of your leg bone causes aches. As well as pressure on your tail bone or between your hip bones. So I wanted to make a more dish shaped seat without being really wide towards the front so it didn’t push on the inside of my legs. After thinking about it for a while I realized that I can run my riding mower for hours without thinking about the seat so I looked around till I found an old riding mower that I could get the seat off of. I then started building my new seat.

As you can see I cut the center part out of the mower seat. I kept the curve up for the backrest small, maybe 3 inches. I kept the seat as wide as I needed though. After locating it where I wanted it I took the stock brackets off the plastic pan and drilled the holes to match on the mower seat then put the brackets through both parts to hold them together tightly.

Once the pan was finished I used more foam from the back seat of a junk car and recovered the new seat pan. I made it a bit thicker than last time and I stuffed some on the back side of the mower seat to keep the edge away from the vinyl. The stock vinyl was not going to fit my new monster seat so I just covered it with new vinyl.

One last thing to add to the seat was a air cushion from JC Whitney. it fits the seat perfectly and gets that last bit of vibration away from you. With the new seat I can ride for hours now. I can easily run a tank of gas out without stopping or even thinking about the seat anymore. Combine this with highway pegs and the throttle position holder and taking a trip across the country would be pretty effortless.