I know a lot of times people ask “what is the best seat for the Challenger”? As we all know, that is very subjective as what works for one won’t work for all. So to provide a little information I tried out 5 of the seats currently available. They were the stock seat, Cycle Ops (Will Molino) custom seat, Corbin, Saddlemen and Ultimate. I reached out to Mustang also and was very disappointed in their customer service and here’s why.
EDIT
When I first posted this I described my issues with Mustang's customer service, which revolved around 5 different phone calls over 3 1/2 weeks without the call back that I was promised multiple times. The manager who's call I was waiting on called me today and she apologized for the treatment I received and explained it was more due to the person answering the phone not knowing how to relay what was happening there, so just promised calls back. She also stated that Mustang would like to be part of this review. So in the next few days or so I should be receiving a seat from them. It’ll probably take 2 weeks or so to get it properly reviewed as I won't have time to break it in and test it before I leave on vacation for a week. Once I get back I will get it reviewed and added to this post as quick as possible.
Let me explain how I did the review as I tried to keep it as even and fair as possible. I did not base it on mileage as the amount of miles I can do in flat/straight Florida in an hour is probably double the mileage you can do in the mountains of TN. Instead I based everything on time on the seat. I figured regardless of how many miles it is, 2 hours is 2 hours. The course I used was always the same as it’s my relaxation ride. It consists of 130 miles of back roads, no interstates, and usually takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes if there are no other vehicles around and I can do my idea of the correct speed. I luckily had some time with each seat that I “borrowed” so I was able to ensure they had 700-800 miles on them before taking them on the test ride to make sure they were broken in properly.
A little bit about me so you can compare what you want. I’m 56 years old, been riding since single digits, 6 foot tall and 220 pounds. As you can see my relaxation ride is 130 miles, most rides I do are at least 200 miles round trip so I end up putting more than a few miles on the seat of a motorcycle.
OK now for the reviews. I’ll start off with stock, go through the manufacturers and then the custom seat. Realize this is just my opinions and experiences and yours may vary, but hopefully something I relate will help you make your decision, along with other member’s impressions.
Stock Indian
I have to say I don’t hate the stock seat for short rides. I like the seating position and it works well for rides lasting an hour to an hour and a half. The problem is once it starts to get painful, sometime around the 1.5 to 2 hour mark for me, there is no relieving it. It’s like the seat foam just gives up and you’re sitting on the seat pan. It’s a shame as I like the seating position and width of the stock seat, but it gives up way too early.
Saddleman Heated Roadsofa PT
The Saddlemen installs just like the stock seat with the same mounting positions and hardware. Believe it or not the Saddleman was the second worse for me. I’m not sure if it’s the shape, or that it’s a pillow top (which they suggested for long touring), but right about 2 hours there’s a fair amount of searing hot pain in the taint region. Nothing I did would bring relief to the boys and I had to park it and get off the seat for about 30 minutes before continuing. And even after being off the seat for 30 minutes there was a fair amount of discomfort when I climbed back on. I wouldn’t rate this much better than the stock seat for me personally. Also, the Saddleman has to have the worst set up for wiring the heated seat. It is a jumble of wires and next to no directions. And when I called them to ask about wiring it into the stock harness they did say you could do it, but would not provide anything but a link to the directions on their website, which is hard wiring to the battery. With all the other manufacturers making it a simple plug into the stock harness, Saddleman has to step up and fix this, if they haven’t already. Because it was such a pain to install, I never tested the heated seat.
Corbin Dual Touring Heated Seat
The Corbin mounts completely differently than any of the other seats and is easily the easiest to get off and on once installed. The Corbin removes the large bolt at the back of the seat on the rear fender and you replace it with their stud. Then you just slide under the front forks and click down on the back of the seat and you’re done. There is then a key you use on the side of the seat and when you turn it the seat unlocks and pulls off. No side covers to pull off and no screws to take out. Now with every good thing there has to be a flip side. The Corbin has the most difficult backrest to adjust, both in angle of the backrest and angle of the pad. Everything is adjusted by allen key and it’s not set up to be adjusted while riding. Also, you can’t adjust the height of the back rest at all. The Corbin is definitely the hardest of all the seats, but that might not be a bad thing. I went about 2.5 hours till I noticed any discomfort which was fairly mild. One of the things I noticed is the Corbin is a completely different sitting position than the rest of the seats. I took some pictures to show what I mean as it’s a little harder to describe. It is also very easy to connect the wiring harness for the heated seat as it just plugs into the stock harness like the Ultimate. Since I was able to do the entire ride with almost no discomfort I continued to see when I started squirming. It wasn’t too far past the end that I noticed my right side becoming increasingly painful at a little over 3 hours and I also noticed it seemed to be one of the stitched lines from the rear to the front of the seat that was causing a hot spot. That seam was raised higher than the rest of the seat, on both sides, but only the right side was bothering me. I also tested the heated seat once the discomfort really kicked in and I found it easy to use and it warmed up very quickly.
Ultimate Heated Midrider
The Ultimate Seat mounts the same as stock so no surprises there. It was really comfortable and I was able to ride for the same 2.5 hours before starting to feel any discomfort. The difference between the Corbin and the Ultimate was even after about 3.5 hours it didn’t get much worse. The one negative aspect of the Ultimate was the one I tested was a midrider and felt like it was much more cramped than any of the other seats. That’s because the Saddleman, Corbin and CycleOps all move you back 1”-1.5”, where the Ultimate Midrider says it seats you right about stock position. Even though they say it sits you in the same position as stock, the Midrider felt more cramped than my stock seat. They do have the Tall boy that sits you back 1.5” which might have been a better choice of seat to test, but you get what you get when you don’t buy your own. The drivers back rest was extremely easy to adjust while riding and did have some height adjustment. Hooking up the heated seat was just like the Corbin, a simple pushing in the plug and you’re all set. I did try the heated seat and although the controls are different than the Corbin, it again was easy to use and heated up fairly quick.
The biggest difference between the Cobin heat controls and the Ultimate heat controls is the switch and location. Corbin uses 2 rocker switches, both mounted on riders left. Ultimate uses 2 pin switches with one being on the left and one being on the right.
Cycle Ops Custom
The Cycle Ops (Will Molino) seat mounts exactly as the stock seat as it’s just a modified stock seat. This one, which I purchased, had the driver’s seat dished out and moved back 1” It was then recovered in their signature black. Will makes some outstanding looking custom seats, but since I was going more for comfort I stuck to the plain jane version.
The seat was actually comfortable throughout the whole loop, never causing any discomfort. So I went further to see if it ever became uncomfortable and it did at about the 3.5 hour mark. The issue is once it does start to get uncomfortable, the discomfort progresses quickly as it almost seems like the stock seat when the foam finally compresses. The good part was I got off the bike and grabbed a quick snack and when I jumped back on it was good as new. Road back an hour to the house with no discomfort at all There are a few disadvantages with this seat though. First, you have to have a stock seat for Cycle Ops to rebuild or pay for a core. Also since they’re not supplying a new seat, you need to use Indians backrest and mount, but if you had them stock they’ll be reusable on the Cycle Ops. At first I thought the only way to get a heated seat was to send in a heated seat, but I’ve since seen posts where Will added a heated option. I have no idea how well this works or how easy it is to wire in. Also, you’ll be waiting a while for the seat once you order it as Will has been running 16 weeks out and said that is his norm. The only other issue I ran into is right where the driver’s seat and passenger seat meet at the bottom of the seat and continuing to the rear of the passenger seat is a gap between the bottom of the seat and the fender big enough to slide your fingers under (Measured at 3/8”). In fact when you’re walking up to the bike you can look under the seat and see the wire harness under the seat on the throttle side. I talked to Will about it and he stated that if I brought the bike and seat to him he’d rectify it, as he wanted to see the gap and then make sure the redone seat doesn’t show the same gap, but that’s at least an 8 hour day for me to go down, wait an hour for the seat to be torn apart and redone and then drive home. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that.
Mustang Standard Touring
OK I’ll be honest right up front, after all the run around Mustang customer service gave me and all the promises unkempt, I wanted to tear this seat apart in the review. Unfortunately for me in that aspect, I can’t. The Mustang seat mounts up exactly as the stock seat, same as all the rest besides Corbin. I called up to find out what the break in suggestion was and found out there is none, so a couple laps around the neighborhood to get the backrest right and I was off. As for riding, this seat was the most comfortable for me by a long shot. I completed the whole loop without even a hint of discomfort so kept going. After another hour and still no discomfort I figured I’d head home as the winds were starting to pick up as we have another “probable hurricane” headed our way in the next 2 days. However in the entire ride there was never a hint of discomfort that crept in. The riding position isn’t stated on the website, and the response I got when I called was a little back, but I’d guess it’s at least a couple inches back and even a bit lower. It’s a comfortable stance, but it was the first seat where there was almost no bend to my arms going to the bars. So that’s what I’m basing the depth on. The backrest was the most comfortable one I’ve used as the adjustment doesn’t just change an angle, it moves the whole backrest head in and out. I was also able to adjust both height and the distance while riding. The one thing that Mustang does need to do is make the adjust knob about ½” longer as I bottomed the adjustment out, moving the backrest as close as it would go, and still needed a couple turns to make it perfect. Mustang does not make a heated seat for the Challenger yet, but when I spoke to the sales manager she did say they were in discussions at this time with the different heating element companies. So hopefully one will be available in the near future.
Side Note:
A riding buddy of mine swears by the Alaska Leather Sheepskin Buttpad. He’s been trying to get me to try one for quite a while. Recently I went on a road trip where we did a little over 2000 miles in 5 days, many of them in the mountains of NC and TN. It might only have been 2000 miles, but it was a lot of time in the seat. Since I hadn’t found the perfect option for a seat quite yet I figured I’d buy one of these Alaska leather pads and see how they worked out. I have to say I was pretty impressed with it. After spending about 2.5 hours in the saddle we stopped for gas and I slid the pad on and when we took off it was like riding on a new seat. It easily added another hour to hour and a half ride time without any discomfort. Can’t say whether it’ll work for you, but since it worked so well for me I wanted to mention it.
Final Take Aways
If I had to rate the seats from most comfortable to least, it’d be:
The best heated seat is also Corbin. I’m basing that on how fast the seat heated up and I like both controls being on the same side, one in front of the other. It makes it nearly impossible to turn on the wrong seat. The worst is Saddleman. When the other seat manufacturers can make their seats plug and play, the wiring spaghetti they provide is laughable.
Best drivers backrest would be the Mustang with the worst being the Corbin, due to how it installs and how difficult it is to adjust.
These are my opinions. Some might change if the Ultimate Tall Boy is better than their Midrider. Or the Saddleman Road Sofa is better than the Road Sofa Pillow Top (Their choice for long distance). However based on what I was able to test, these are my choices and opinions. I know there are two more choices that are popular on the Challenger, the Mean City and the Russell Day Long. Both of these are trade in seats so I didn’t request trials, but if anyone in Central Florida has one and wants to trade for a couple weeks I’d be happy to try them out and add them to this review.
OK, that’s all the info I have. Hopefully someone finds some of this information informative. If there’s any questions just ask. I also added pictures of the Corbin and Ultimate seats so you can see how much further the Corbin moves you back compared to Ultimate’s Midrider and also the difference in seating angles. I didn’t take the same picture with the Saddlemen, but judging on where it hurts, my guess is the seating position is an exaggerated form of the Corbins.
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EDIT
When I first posted this I described my issues with Mustang's customer service, which revolved around 5 different phone calls over 3 1/2 weeks without the call back that I was promised multiple times. The manager who's call I was waiting on called me today and she apologized for the treatment I received and explained it was more due to the person answering the phone not knowing how to relay what was happening there, so just promised calls back. She also stated that Mustang would like to be part of this review. So in the next few days or so I should be receiving a seat from them. It’ll probably take 2 weeks or so to get it properly reviewed as I won't have time to break it in and test it before I leave on vacation for a week. Once I get back I will get it reviewed and added to this post as quick as possible.
Let me explain how I did the review as I tried to keep it as even and fair as possible. I did not base it on mileage as the amount of miles I can do in flat/straight Florida in an hour is probably double the mileage you can do in the mountains of TN. Instead I based everything on time on the seat. I figured regardless of how many miles it is, 2 hours is 2 hours. The course I used was always the same as it’s my relaxation ride. It consists of 130 miles of back roads, no interstates, and usually takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes if there are no other vehicles around and I can do my idea of the correct speed. I luckily had some time with each seat that I “borrowed” so I was able to ensure they had 700-800 miles on them before taking them on the test ride to make sure they were broken in properly.
A little bit about me so you can compare what you want. I’m 56 years old, been riding since single digits, 6 foot tall and 220 pounds. As you can see my relaxation ride is 130 miles, most rides I do are at least 200 miles round trip so I end up putting more than a few miles on the seat of a motorcycle.
OK now for the reviews. I’ll start off with stock, go through the manufacturers and then the custom seat. Realize this is just my opinions and experiences and yours may vary, but hopefully something I relate will help you make your decision, along with other member’s impressions.
Stock Indian
I have to say I don’t hate the stock seat for short rides. I like the seating position and it works well for rides lasting an hour to an hour and a half. The problem is once it starts to get painful, sometime around the 1.5 to 2 hour mark for me, there is no relieving it. It’s like the seat foam just gives up and you’re sitting on the seat pan. It’s a shame as I like the seating position and width of the stock seat, but it gives up way too early.
Saddleman Heated Roadsofa PT
The Saddlemen installs just like the stock seat with the same mounting positions and hardware. Believe it or not the Saddleman was the second worse for me. I’m not sure if it’s the shape, or that it’s a pillow top (which they suggested for long touring), but right about 2 hours there’s a fair amount of searing hot pain in the taint region. Nothing I did would bring relief to the boys and I had to park it and get off the seat for about 30 minutes before continuing. And even after being off the seat for 30 minutes there was a fair amount of discomfort when I climbed back on. I wouldn’t rate this much better than the stock seat for me personally. Also, the Saddleman has to have the worst set up for wiring the heated seat. It is a jumble of wires and next to no directions. And when I called them to ask about wiring it into the stock harness they did say you could do it, but would not provide anything but a link to the directions on their website, which is hard wiring to the battery. With all the other manufacturers making it a simple plug into the stock harness, Saddleman has to step up and fix this, if they haven’t already. Because it was such a pain to install, I never tested the heated seat.
Corbin Dual Touring Heated Seat
The Corbin mounts completely differently than any of the other seats and is easily the easiest to get off and on once installed. The Corbin removes the large bolt at the back of the seat on the rear fender and you replace it with their stud. Then you just slide under the front forks and click down on the back of the seat and you’re done. There is then a key you use on the side of the seat and when you turn it the seat unlocks and pulls off. No side covers to pull off and no screws to take out. Now with every good thing there has to be a flip side. The Corbin has the most difficult backrest to adjust, both in angle of the backrest and angle of the pad. Everything is adjusted by allen key and it’s not set up to be adjusted while riding. Also, you can’t adjust the height of the back rest at all. The Corbin is definitely the hardest of all the seats, but that might not be a bad thing. I went about 2.5 hours till I noticed any discomfort which was fairly mild. One of the things I noticed is the Corbin is a completely different sitting position than the rest of the seats. I took some pictures to show what I mean as it’s a little harder to describe. It is also very easy to connect the wiring harness for the heated seat as it just plugs into the stock harness like the Ultimate. Since I was able to do the entire ride with almost no discomfort I continued to see when I started squirming. It wasn’t too far past the end that I noticed my right side becoming increasingly painful at a little over 3 hours and I also noticed it seemed to be one of the stitched lines from the rear to the front of the seat that was causing a hot spot. That seam was raised higher than the rest of the seat, on both sides, but only the right side was bothering me. I also tested the heated seat once the discomfort really kicked in and I found it easy to use and it warmed up very quickly.
Ultimate Heated Midrider
The Ultimate Seat mounts the same as stock so no surprises there. It was really comfortable and I was able to ride for the same 2.5 hours before starting to feel any discomfort. The difference between the Corbin and the Ultimate was even after about 3.5 hours it didn’t get much worse. The one negative aspect of the Ultimate was the one I tested was a midrider and felt like it was much more cramped than any of the other seats. That’s because the Saddleman, Corbin and CycleOps all move you back 1”-1.5”, where the Ultimate Midrider says it seats you right about stock position. Even though they say it sits you in the same position as stock, the Midrider felt more cramped than my stock seat. They do have the Tall boy that sits you back 1.5” which might have been a better choice of seat to test, but you get what you get when you don’t buy your own. The drivers back rest was extremely easy to adjust while riding and did have some height adjustment. Hooking up the heated seat was just like the Corbin, a simple pushing in the plug and you’re all set. I did try the heated seat and although the controls are different than the Corbin, it again was easy to use and heated up fairly quick.
The biggest difference between the Cobin heat controls and the Ultimate heat controls is the switch and location. Corbin uses 2 rocker switches, both mounted on riders left. Ultimate uses 2 pin switches with one being on the left and one being on the right.
Cycle Ops Custom
The Cycle Ops (Will Molino) seat mounts exactly as the stock seat as it’s just a modified stock seat. This one, which I purchased, had the driver’s seat dished out and moved back 1” It was then recovered in their signature black. Will makes some outstanding looking custom seats, but since I was going more for comfort I stuck to the plain jane version.
The seat was actually comfortable throughout the whole loop, never causing any discomfort. So I went further to see if it ever became uncomfortable and it did at about the 3.5 hour mark. The issue is once it does start to get uncomfortable, the discomfort progresses quickly as it almost seems like the stock seat when the foam finally compresses. The good part was I got off the bike and grabbed a quick snack and when I jumped back on it was good as new. Road back an hour to the house with no discomfort at all There are a few disadvantages with this seat though. First, you have to have a stock seat for Cycle Ops to rebuild or pay for a core. Also since they’re not supplying a new seat, you need to use Indians backrest and mount, but if you had them stock they’ll be reusable on the Cycle Ops. At first I thought the only way to get a heated seat was to send in a heated seat, but I’ve since seen posts where Will added a heated option. I have no idea how well this works or how easy it is to wire in. Also, you’ll be waiting a while for the seat once you order it as Will has been running 16 weeks out and said that is his norm. The only other issue I ran into is right where the driver’s seat and passenger seat meet at the bottom of the seat and continuing to the rear of the passenger seat is a gap between the bottom of the seat and the fender big enough to slide your fingers under (Measured at 3/8”). In fact when you’re walking up to the bike you can look under the seat and see the wire harness under the seat on the throttle side. I talked to Will about it and he stated that if I brought the bike and seat to him he’d rectify it, as he wanted to see the gap and then make sure the redone seat doesn’t show the same gap, but that’s at least an 8 hour day for me to go down, wait an hour for the seat to be torn apart and redone and then drive home. So I’m not sure what I’m going to do about that.
Mustang Standard Touring
OK I’ll be honest right up front, after all the run around Mustang customer service gave me and all the promises unkempt, I wanted to tear this seat apart in the review. Unfortunately for me in that aspect, I can’t. The Mustang seat mounts up exactly as the stock seat, same as all the rest besides Corbin. I called up to find out what the break in suggestion was and found out there is none, so a couple laps around the neighborhood to get the backrest right and I was off. As for riding, this seat was the most comfortable for me by a long shot. I completed the whole loop without even a hint of discomfort so kept going. After another hour and still no discomfort I figured I’d head home as the winds were starting to pick up as we have another “probable hurricane” headed our way in the next 2 days. However in the entire ride there was never a hint of discomfort that crept in. The riding position isn’t stated on the website, and the response I got when I called was a little back, but I’d guess it’s at least a couple inches back and even a bit lower. It’s a comfortable stance, but it was the first seat where there was almost no bend to my arms going to the bars. So that’s what I’m basing the depth on. The backrest was the most comfortable one I’ve used as the adjustment doesn’t just change an angle, it moves the whole backrest head in and out. I was also able to adjust both height and the distance while riding. The one thing that Mustang does need to do is make the adjust knob about ½” longer as I bottomed the adjustment out, moving the backrest as close as it would go, and still needed a couple turns to make it perfect. Mustang does not make a heated seat for the Challenger yet, but when I spoke to the sales manager she did say they were in discussions at this time with the different heating element companies. So hopefully one will be available in the near future.
Side Note:
A riding buddy of mine swears by the Alaska Leather Sheepskin Buttpad. He’s been trying to get me to try one for quite a while. Recently I went on a road trip where we did a little over 2000 miles in 5 days, many of them in the mountains of NC and TN. It might only have been 2000 miles, but it was a lot of time in the seat. Since I hadn’t found the perfect option for a seat quite yet I figured I’d buy one of these Alaska leather pads and see how they worked out. I have to say I was pretty impressed with it. After spending about 2.5 hours in the saddle we stopped for gas and I slid the pad on and when we took off it was like riding on a new seat. It easily added another hour to hour and a half ride time without any discomfort. Can’t say whether it’ll work for you, but since it worked so well for me I wanted to mention it.
Final Take Aways
If I had to rate the seats from most comfortable to least, it’d be:
- Mustang
- Cycle Ops
- Corbin/Ultimate
- Indian
- Saddleman
The best heated seat is also Corbin. I’m basing that on how fast the seat heated up and I like both controls being on the same side, one in front of the other. It makes it nearly impossible to turn on the wrong seat. The worst is Saddleman. When the other seat manufacturers can make their seats plug and play, the wiring spaghetti they provide is laughable.
Best drivers backrest would be the Mustang with the worst being the Corbin, due to how it installs and how difficult it is to adjust.
These are my opinions. Some might change if the Ultimate Tall Boy is better than their Midrider. Or the Saddleman Road Sofa is better than the Road Sofa Pillow Top (Their choice for long distance). However based on what I was able to test, these are my choices and opinions. I know there are two more choices that are popular on the Challenger, the Mean City and the Russell Day Long. Both of these are trade in seats so I didn’t request trials, but if anyone in Central Florida has one and wants to trade for a couple weeks I’d be happy to try them out and add them to this review.
OK, that’s all the info I have. Hopefully someone finds some of this information informative. If there’s any questions just ask. I also added pictures of the Corbin and Ultimate seats so you can see how much further the Corbin moves you back compared to Ultimate’s Midrider and also the difference in seating angles. I didn’t take the same picture with the Saddlemen, but judging on where it hurts, my guess is the seating position is an exaggerated form of the Corbins.
