Royal Enfield Seat Comparison: Standard vs Touring vs Sahara Aftermarket – Which is Best?
Today we're comparing three motorcycle seats. The standard two-piece and single piece touring seat from Royal Enfield, and the Sahara aftermarket touring seat. Which one offers the best comfort and what's the price difference? Stick around to find out which seat is worth the upgrade, and your money. [Music] Looking very good actually, looking very good. Thank you from Sahara seats, and I must say a thank you to Sahara seats also for sending me this. It's just a shame it got stuck in customs for nearly a week, but anyway it's here after paying the release fee.
Three seats putting to the test today, which one do you like? The standard two-piece seat? The genuine Royal Enfield touring seat? And the aftermarket Sahara dual touring seat? We've already tested the first two. Now it's time to put this one to the test. First Impressions, it's twice as heavy as the original. It's made from fiberglass, you can see this. You can see this fiberglass resin there, so it's made from fiberglass, the base. Sahara seats. We've got your back. No, we got your back. It should be we've. We've got your back. We got your back. I get the I get the pun. Um,
I'm not too impressed with these. This one's got the screw all the way down in. This one's got the screw all the way down in. But these two haven't. If I put that on the bike like it is, the screw is going to damage my paint work. So only a slight little problem. I'm going to have to tighten that screw up a little bit, but the rear has no rubbers whatsoever.
There's the original seat. There's the Sahara aftermarket rear seat. They did tell me I would have to remove this bracket. And there we go. The bracket transferred across no problem at all. Okay, another lesson learned. I've undone these bolts. I put the washer on top,
because that's where I thought it went with no instructions. After reading the instructions it says to put put this washer underneath, like so. And now I understand the reason why, cuz you can see I've got an indent from this piece of metal here. S a little bit annoyed.
Obviously that washer raises it enough to stop that indenting. Um it's not a, it's not a big deal, but I am a little bit annoyed at the same time. So uh I've actually cut this myself as well, as like a protector to protect my paint work. I've
protected my paint work, but not protected my paint work. So obviously that washer goes there. Drones that have captured in Thailand's Northern Chiang Rai Province showed residential areas and surrounding fields in undated following flash floods that struck the region. One muddy bike. One muddy teacher T. Uh unfortunately Chiang Rai has been hit by a typhoon, and the whole city of Chiang Rai has been flooded. Luckily the waters have dropped now. Um but I've been helping my employer clear her house of about this much of
silt through her whole property. So I've done that this morning. Um but the Sahara seats have been fitted in a hurry, and I forgot about those screws right. I forgot about those screws. So time will tell. I will take this off to see if there's any paint damage.
They're a lot different than I expected. Um they're a lot of firmer than I expected. I thought they were going to be um cloudy soft um gel. Not like that at all. They're very firm seats, but at the same time, my opinion, they're very comfortable. Um I don't feel the vibrations in the road. I don't feel the bumps in the road with these seats. So I'm going to give you a close-up now, of these seats, to see what you think.
Sahara aftermarket seats. They really do look nice on the bike, they really do look nice. And we've got Super Meteor 650 written there which is kind of nice. I've got Sahara seat label there, which is very nice. Uh Mrs T's got a very thick padded seat there on the back, and mine is a little bit taller than my original single seat. And we went shopping yesterday, and for a little money we bought this one. Mrs T's got a cushion to uh fill up the gap that she has,
because she's only tiny. The back rest is as far forward as possible, but it still doesn't fit her, so I've put a cushion on which has got a strap on the back. And yeah, what do you think guys? What do you think? Do you like the look? Um to me, it's more comfortable than the touring seat, the Royal Enfield original touring seat. For me it's more comfortable. I can't speak for Mrs T at the moment, that will be tomorrow. But to me it's more comfortable and it looks cool. So I'm really looking forward to taking the pillion seat off,
taking the back rest off, and making it a single seat bike, look number two. So how low can you go? um, I've got the seat completely removed. You would think that would be your lowest option, to make a seat as low as that. I'm going to demonstrate to you that that doesn't work at all. Um look at that! I'm sat on the seat with no seat. My legs, my legs cannot touch the floor at all. So the lower the seat doesn't mean the better footing on the bike. The seat needs to be at least that height for
your legs to be able to go straight down to get a better footing on this bike. So now I've got the original seat back on. The one that I modified myself. The one I cut with my angle grinder. It is super soft by doing that, especially where I cut it at the front,
where your man bits go. This is where I have to sit. Right here, when I'm manoeuvring the bike, for me to be the best footing that I can. Not here. If I sit here I've got no footing at all. I have to move my body forward to here, so it's important that
this part is soft and just note where that is on the tank right. Just note where that is. I'm going to sit on the bike now bearing in mind it's very hot today I've got my flip flops on. Normally when I got my boots on. There we go if I sit as far forward to the tank as possible, I can even flat foot the bike nearly with my flip flops on. So that's kind of good. And now the Sahara touring seat. Again take note of the tank I think, I can't see it yet but I'm I'm going to check on the video later but I think that's higher on the tank, and therefore when I push my body forward, I can't get as low of footing. Let's just try it.
Let's move forward. Hmmmm, not much difference. Maybe maybe only a centimetre, but that's that's a lot to me. Um maybe the seat will bed in in time. Maybe? Maybe the seat will soften in time. So uh yeah see it's slippy there. It's slippy and this is such a heavy bike that if you just lean slightly over and you slip it's not a good feeling to have. But anyway yeah, that's the Sahara seat. It is more comfortable, I must admit. Just sitting like this is more
comfortable. How it's going to react on a long journey we'll find out in a minute. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Sahara seats. I'm going to say nothing. Give me some feedback about your pillion Sahara seat. It's the look, look very good. yeah yeah. I think the look, look better than the last one, the touring seat. Yeah. And it's soft, feel is softer than the original one. Yes cuz again it's quite a thick seat right so? Yeah it is,
but um when I ride it today, I think maybe the seat, they little little bit smaller size or the shape. I'm not really sure. Yeah. It's just a feeling little bit hurt my back leg. The back of your legs?Yes. Okay, so that's different than before, normally it was the comfort hurting you. This is something totally different right? Yeah. Different feeling all together, that you never had on the original scene seat or the touring seat? No. It's just hurting on the back of your legs, so we'll have a look at that quickly but it sounds like it's the beading around the top of the seat there that's hurting your legs? I'm not really sure, I think maybe too small seat. The touring seat makes you sit little bit more wider, and more comfort. This one little bit in I don't know how
it's h just hurt look like a you [ __ ]. So the big question is the really really big question is, on our tour in October when we're going to do a long long distance travel, which seat would you like teacher T to put on the bike? Have to be touring seat. Has to be the touring seat. Okay, so we'll do that. For me the Sahara seat is more comfortable. Definitely more comfortable for me, but obviously the pillion is more important for long distance. So it looks like I'll be swapping between the touring seat when you're coming with me, and then putting the Sahara seat on as my single seat, because like you say the look it's really good right? It looks really nice. [Music] My extra back rest for Mrs T. We did take that off on the way back, just to see if that made any
difference for her. It didn't. But now what I'm wondering is, normally the angle of the original seat was this. We put the back rest on, it was like that. Now we've put this aftermarket Sahara seat on is kind of like this angle. So one more attempt. We're going to take the back rest off,
and see if that's more comfortable from Mrs T. Um, if it is, then that just means I've got to get an aftermarket back rest to fit here. So the problem is still not solved, it's still ongoing unfortunately. This seat is better for me and it's gradually wearing in so I've been using it for a week now it's gradually getting softer over time and I do find it more comfortable than the original. The only thing is it's a little bit thicker and it goes a little bit
higher where the tank is, so I'm not low footing the bike as much as I did before. Um they do sell a low seat option. So maybe I have to buy another seat? But Mrs T will kill me if I do. Uh we will look into it. And lots of seat options available from Sahara seats for many brands of bike, and they just sell the seat cover as well if you're interested. So worth looking at their
website. Sahara seats.com. I will put a link in the description. This is a non-sponsored video. So I've just put the touring seat on. top of the Sahara seats, just to see what she's talking about. And it's just here she reckons it's a bit wider here, at this point,
than what the Sahara seat is underneath. And when I measure it with a tape measure it does measure 27 CM across at that point. Where if I measure the Sahara seat at that point, it's only 22. So it's just a little bit too narrow here for her, and I'm just wondering if the the beading here is hurting her legs also cuz it's quite hard beading here. But Mrs T says it's not as good as a touring seat, and I have to believe her. So sorry Sahara seats. You win for me, but not for Mrs T. Now it's time to turn it into a single seat bike, and see how that looks with the Sahara seat.
So it's just a case of undoing the four 8 mm bolts that's all that holds the back rest on. Four bolts off. Should be just a case of lifting the back rest off. Taa daa! It's a very heavy back rest, very heavy back rest. So maybe I need to find an aftermarket back rest. Very sorry Mrs T, very sorry. But wow, doesn't that look nice? Doesn't that look nice, and I see on their website they do another one with a back rest built in, which looks super super cool. But I'm liking the look of that. I am liking the look of that.
[Music] [Applause] [Music] One thing that's unexpected, is the is the kick on this seat. This rear kick is a lot higher than the original seat, and it's quite firm there on the back. So when I'm riding the bike for the first time ever if I see a major pothole coming up that I can't avoid I can just push on the foot pegs and actually lift my bottom off off of the seat for the first time like you normally would do on a on a mid Peg bike right you would normally push up on the foot pegs you can't really do that on a forward Peg bike but I can now with this with this lip at the back of the seat so it's rainy season here in Thailand there is potholes popping up everywhere with the groundwater rising up so sometimes you ride a road every day you think you know it but there's potholes appearing out of nowhere and I can't avoid them so if I push back like this I'm actually lifting myself off of the seat for the first time ever and then back to normal cruising on a good road I don't need to use that part at all so that part of the seat is very useful and it it kind of looks cool as well right so now it's time to remove my seat and see what damage is done underneath with that screw I know it's damaged I can feel it I can feel it grinding when I'm r so I know it's damaged the paint work let's have a look together what it's done this screw was the lowest one and you can see it's taking the paint off there I could feel it I could hear it so if that's what it does on there imagine what it would do on here for the pon seat so the pan seat the screws are not down enough from my liking so I'm going to screw them up a bit tighter and for a backup I think I'm going to stick something underneath there anyway a piece of cloth um because the last thing I want that doing is scratching the paintwork on my lovely Fender but I'm doing this just to put these rubbers straight on the paint workor because when the back rest is on the seat is at this angle I'm going to try and lower the angle for Mrs T just to see if that makes a difference for her again no rubbers on the front but I I kind of understand why they're not doing it because it sixs it sits on the on the bracket so there's no really need for rubbers there I don't think they're going to do much it's just the rear rubbers so I definitely need a bit more padding on those we'll pop the seat back on hook it under and this time the rear short hook goes on so we can get the Ping seat on and that will lower the angle for Mrs T and we'll give that another trial just to give Sahara seats a chance to see if it was just the angle that was making her uncomfortable and there we go there's a different look no back rest that's the rear pan seat a lot thicker than the original Little thin thing at the back um I know Mrs T wants that to be made WI but I don't think that would look nice that's the thing right just wouldn't look so good if that was made thicker I'm not sure maybe that change of angle is going to be better for Mrs T it's not as much as an angle now it's more of a flat seat again and I'm pleased to say that this experiment actually worked this didn't hurt the back of her legs as much but we only managed a quick 15minute ride tonight before I have to upload this video ready for Friday so um we will put it to the test further and let you know in future videos the only thing that she's missing is the back rest she just misses that reassurance of her back rest so I definitely need an aftermarket back rest if anybody can recommend one please let me know especially one that goes closer to the plion because Mrs T she's rather petite she needs one that's very close to her so yeah we're we're there I'm going to go through the prices of the seats Now quickly the genuine Royal Enfield touring seat and back rest cost me a total of £188 or $242 or 20,700 rupees the Sahara seat Comfort Rider touring seats cost a total of 7,697 rupees which is about 70 UK or $93 so great value you do have to pay extra those for postage and import taxes my 10,000 km service is due unfortunately I'm going to have to do that myself because my local Royal Enfield dealer is also underwater which is a bit sad so it's going to take them a week or so to get back to normal and I need to get this done because next weekend we're on the the one ride on the 22nd of September we're on the one ride and I need to get the oil and filter change before then so I'm going to have to sort that out myself please don't be scared to give this video a like if you found it useful from a wet and humid Thailand we'll see you very soon until then right safe [Music]
2024-09-28 21:07
