Thursday (Day at Russell "Day-Long" Seats)

Well, today was one of the main events of the trip, second only to picking up Kari tomorrow in Reno. I arrived at Russell Seats slightly before 8am, the designated time. There was an intial "seating" where I got on the bike, center stand down, and discussing my seating tendencies with the builder. After 5 or 10 minutes of this, and a discussion of options, I decided to go with the leather inserts (meaning the top) and vinyl sides, per their recommendation; backrest; and heated seats.

It took them a couple hours to create/assemble the foam portion. At this point, I was invited to take a quick run up to the dam (i.e. take a dam ride). While on the dam ride, I took some dam pictures, too! :) The seat fit well, and I was able to play around with the back rest a bit.

After the ride, I confirmed my initial thougth that perhaps the driver back rest should be moved forward a smidge, as it was theoretically possible I might want it a little farther forward than the full foward position allowed initially, (if I want a *LOT* of lower back support.) The construction of the back rest was surprisingly sturdy, simple, yet allowed considerable adjustment with little trouble. (Okay, you should pull over before doing it, but otherwise a 30 second adjustment.)

When I got back they started the covering process, which took most of the afternoon. While I waited, I watched a lot of financial gloom and doom on the news channel, surfed the internet a bit on my PSP (yes, Dad, I saw a look at your latest watch. Very nice. I can't seem to get the PSP to compose an e-mail though. Probably just as well, since typing is like using a cell phone to send a message.

Later in the afternoon, I was getting a little bored, and was asking the receptionist some questions about the seat construction. She got one of the guys to give me a tour of the facility. It's bigger on the inside, than it looks from the road. They had about half a dozen employees working on these seats. It sounds like they turn out about 12 seats a day, all but one of which are mail in orders. I'll have to post some pictures when I get a chance.

Finally, at around 5pm the seats were finished, and they looked very nice! I got a couple photos of the seat with a couple of the staff. Then, the next was getting the wires plugged into the cables I had pre-installed before left. Everything worked like a charm. I got a chance to try out the seat next. The seat felt as good as it looked. I fiddled with the back rest setting for a bit. After getting a few parting photos of the staff, I headed home (meaning the hotel.) It had warmed up quite a bit by the afternoon, and I'm be looking forward to some cool weather tomorrow morning.