Saddlemen Road Sofa Review: Is EXTENDED REACH or STANDARD REACH the best for you?

All right, stay tuned! Today, I'm going to show you some of the differences between your stock seat and the Saddlemen Extended Reach and Standard Reach Road Sofa seats, available in both the honeycomb pattern and the LCE [Music] Stitch.

All right, I get a ton of questions on the website all the time, as well as phone calls, asking, "What’s the benefit of going to a Saddlemen Road Sofa, either the Standard or Extended Reach, over the stock seat that's on the bike?" So let's get right into it. Let’s get this seat off, and then I can show you some of the improvements and benefits of going with a nice Road Sofa.

All right, let's start off talking about the stock seat. We all know they're not the greatest thing in the world; it's just something that Harley put on the bike to get it shipped out the door. You can tell it doesn’t really lock you in. The back end of it rolls off for the passenger, so she's always going to be hanging on with that bad angle. It's not really going to be that enjoyable of a seat to have.

Let’s start off with measuring the distance from the gas cap to the stock seat, so you know when you order a Saddlemen seat, whether you need the Standard Reach or the Extended Reach.

So, on this bike, I measured from the gas cap back about 26 inches. We’re going to go ahead and take this seat off now, and then we’ll go over to the Standard Reach Road Sofa.

[Applause]

Okay, so for this Standard Reach Road Sofa, he opted for the backrest, and this is in the perforation with the lattice stitch in red. Go ahead and hit it a couple of times to get it up where it needs to be. All Saddlemen seats are going to come with a rubber fender washer to protect your paint from the seat tab. When you order a red seat, you do get the optional red washer, so I’m going to go ahead and use it since we're on a red bike.

This customer also opted to go with the Saddlemen seat screw—a nice look instead of just the chrome Phillips.

Now we’ll measure the [Applause] Saddlemen right at the same point.

All right, so if you're happy with the seat positioning that you have now, relative to your handlebars and foot controls and everything like that, go with the Standard Reach. We’ll go into the Extended Reach here in a little bit, but I want to talk about some of the features of this seat right now. See how it completely wraps around for support? You've got a flat section back here for your passenger. This seat actually has the rider backrest in it, which actually just comes right out.

Now, if you already have a rider backrest on your bike from Harley or elsewhere, all that bracketry will need to come off the bike to allow for this seat to go on. All the rear backrest equipment for this seat is built into the pocket right here. Therefore, you do need to know whether you're going to want a rider backrest or not when you order your seat. If you do not get one, you will not have the slot or the pocket for the backrest to go into.

Another cool feature on this seat: it has a little storage compartment on the back, so your girl can put some stuff in there, or you can put whatever you need—whether it’s your registration, insurance card, or whatever—right here with the bike at all times, as long as your backrest is on the bike.

Now, we’ll switch over to the Extended Reach.

All right, now we’ve got the Extended Reach with red stitch for honeycomb. This actually has the carbon fiber look, which looks really sharp. Again, we’re going to put it in, hit it a few times. Our seat washer is still there, so we’ll put our set screw back in.

This seat is also set up for the rider backrest, already with the pocket in there. This is going to bring us back a little bit further, so we’ll take a measurement again from the gas cap.

About 27 and a quarter inches. So, if you're looking for that extra room like I need, being 6'3", go ahead and go with the Extended Reach. It's going to give you a little bit more comfort. But keep in mind, this overall seat length is going to be the same, so the two inches you're gaining, your passenger is going to lose. So, keep that in mind so you're not shortening her up to where she’s squished on the back of the bike.

Again, with the Extended Reach, like the Standard Reach, it’s also going to have a lot of nice contour here and an actual firm step-up section right here for good lumbar support, so it’s going to be comfortable going down the road.

Both the Standard Reach and Extended Reach are going to come with Saddlemen’s patented Gel-Core in both the rider and passenger areas. This really makes it a comfortable seat for those long days on the road. You want to keep your girl happy—you don’t want her chatting you up in your ear, complaining!

All right, check out all the great Saddlemen seats that we have at Lifestyle Cycles’ online mega store. We've got them in red stitch, blue stitch, orange stitch, white, gray, silver. If we don’t have your seat in stock, we can also custom order from Saddlemen. There’s a minimal upcharge, but I can get you a seat turned around in a very short period of time, and it’ll be exactly what you want to tie into your bike.

Don’t forget to check out everything that we've got for not only touring bikes, but Sportsters, Dynas, Softails, and M8 Softails—all of it! Check us out at Lifestyle Cycles’ online mega store, and get 5% back in Mega Bucks.

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I’ll see you guys next time!