Getting Your Cafe Racer Seat Right

There is no doubt that one of the hardest things that you have to go through is setting up your cafe racer seat. In most cases, you can never put your seat together unless you’re extremely good at DIY or you just love shabby stuff. So, what you do is once you have put your bike together, you take extensive measurements, then draw out the design you would like to have on the seat. If there is a ready one in the market, you can simply grab that or have one custom made. I prefer custom makes because they are more unique and help the bike stand out. After all, this is the reason why you decided to assemble you own cafe racer. So, it can have your own feel.

Before you start measuring the seat, there are a number of things that you have to consider. These will be very essential in the installation of the seat. Among them is how you’re going to mount the seat. Some of the questions that should be running through your mind should be, will you need to cut or wield it? Will you have to ground something off? The reason why this would be crucial is, you don’t want to have a seat that would fit.

Now that you have taken care of the technicalities you can start measuring. Start with the distance from the tank to the frame where the sear is meant to rest on the shock mounts.

Based on your design, you can choose where you would like your cafe racer seat to come to an end as well as the shape that you would like it to have. I usually advice that it is best between the brake drum and the axle, or between the axle and the rotor.

You also have to measure the distance from the center to the end of the seat through the shock tower bold. Keep in mind that if you prefer to have a monoshock, you will also need to pick where your seat will start raising.

In this step, you will need to note something very important. All your measurements need to be taken from the outer side of the frame.

Start by measuring the distance at the gas tank keeping an eye on the areas that have a change in width especially those areas that would affect the tank. Measure out the shock towers as well as their related distance from the tank as well as the most important areas which is where the frame ends.

In the last bit of your measuring, take note of the highest point of the tank without including the cap since this is crucial to how you position your bump height.

I prefer you do the measurements at least two times or even better, three. You can never be too sure and there is so much at stake. After you’re sure of you measurements, can take that information and put it in a diagram that you can take to the custom shop for the seat to be made. You don’t have to be a designer to get this done.

Conclusion

The reason why the cafe racer seat has to be measured the right way is, it is among the last pieces you will add to the cafe racer for it to be functional. If you get it wrong, you have yourself a lot of work of either getting another seat, or take the bike apart to fit in the seat.