Using a knife with a long serrated blade, trim the excess padding off flush to the edge of the seat pan, using the outside edge of the pan as your guide. (As pictured below)

Sculpting the contour of the seat
Time now to put your artistic skills to the test. This is where you’ll carve out the shape of your seat. The goal is to make the seat flow with the curves of your bike, while at the same time, making it feel comfortable on the old keester. To achieve that, you need to approach the job like a sculptor. Chiseling a little, then stepping back for a look, chiseling a little more, trying it on the bike, taking it off, repeating this process over and over until you’ve got it just right.


As I said, you’ll approach the job like a sculptor, but instead of a hammer and chisel, you’ll be using a 4″ mini grinder with a sanding disc on it. I find that a 120 grit sanding disc works good. Start off by rounding the sides then work your way to the center. Keep your disc as flat as possible to avoid the disc grabbing and slicing into the neoprene. The key is to take your time, taking small amounts off at a time until you get the shape just right. You want the surface to be smooth with fluid curves. Any lumps or ridges will stick out like a sore thumb once you have leather stretched tight over it.

By the time you’re finished sculpting your neoprene seat padding, it should look something like the illustration above. The next step is to cover it with some leather, which will be part 2 of this tutorial.