Corbin pt 2

In my last post I detailed how Corbin sent me the wrong seat, claimed I had ordered the wrong one (despite my proof otherwise), made me pay to ship it back, and charged my card $35 for shipping/reprocessing whatever.

On September 18 (a month and two days after ordering my seat) I received the "correct" seat. The part number was correct anyways.

There are four distinct things wrong with this seat.

1. The seat pan doesn't have a tongue to fit under the subframe in the front to stabilize the seat. It has a cheesy L-shaped bracket that does nothing for stability. You can actually feel the front of the seat wobble. Its as though a blind man felt an OEM seat pan and described it to another man that made a mold for the fiberglass, then drilled whatever brackets they had on hand into it to fit the bolt layout.

 The OEM "tongue".

2. The seat pan is too wide. When you have your legs down at a stop its digging into your thighs. This might be fine for someone who has wide hips or a woman, but not a guy with a 32" waist.

3. There is no padding in the rear, where you actually sit as a sportbiker. With the slick nature of textile pants on leather, without padding or shaping you'll slide around. Seriously my hips were hurting after 10 minutes on this seat.

4. There is a ridge down the center of the seat. Remember the lawsuit from the owner of a BMW for the same issue? http://content.usatoday.com/communities/driveon/post/2012/04/man-sues-bmw-for-persistent-erection-after-bike-ride/1#.UjyU7YZJPcA

I contacted Corbin customer service and asked for a refund. Of course they have no return policy so the surly fellow on the phone named Sergio gave me an RMA. Fedex is supposed to pick up the box tomorrow and take it back to the factory. I included written and illustrated instructions on how to fix their seat.

At this rate I might have the seat I want by Christmas.

Go listen to this

Normally I wouldn't recommend a podcast. 99% of the podcasts I've heard are absolute self serving garbage. This assessment carries across podcasts that relate to the various equipment intense sports that I partake in as well as politics and pornography.

Here is the exception: http://twowheelpodcast.podbean.com/

Two Wheel Podcast is run by Ralph Rodriguez, "Soggydoo" on pnwriders.com. Ralph is a long time rider on the street and track. Professionally he engineers for a talk radio station, so his podcast is somewhat better produced than anyone elses'. On the motorcycle Ralph is responsible for encouraging new sport riders to take it to the track, and got me on the track for the first time.

TWP's guests come from all sides of motorcycling, racing, and engineering. For instance I'm listening to an interview of Dave Moss (http://feelthetrack.com), a professional tuner and racer.

In July 2013 Ralph hosted a suspension clinic at his house near Medford, Oregon with Dave Moss. At that clinic Dave took 50 of us and educated us on the science behind the suspension on our bikes. He took a plethora of different bikes and as he set each one up, tried to impart to us the how/why/what of making the bike work like its designed to. Dave genuinely wants to make the sport safer through better knowledge of the technology and technique.

Other guests include: Kevin Schwantz (motoGP champion), Blake Young (racer), Rob Burch (motofitgroup), and Larry Pegram (racer).

Its worth some time to listen to.