Why our MP/Lite butts hurt and the fix

[Mooseman]

Bigger guys like me know what I'm talking. After riding a while, you move your butt towards the back of the seat to stretch the legs a bit because the knees start to hurt and there's a hard plastic hump right under your tailbone. Hitting bumps just kills your rump. Here's why:

Riding on that hump so long, the foam padding breaks and you are riding directly on the plastic hump. Ouch!

I tried to just replace the foam directly on top of the hump by cutting it out and gluing in another piece to fit.

After riding a couple of days on this, the foam didn't help. Not enough foam to cushion from that plastic hump and my butt still hurt so I went for a more radical fix, removing the hump.

So I ripped out my previous repair attempt and peeled the foam back so I can access the hump to cut it, which I did with a grinder (sorry, I don't have a before pic).

Then I cut a new piece of foam to fill from the top to the bottom of the cut out piece.

To support the bottom of that foam so that my butt doesn't push it through the hole left by the now gone hump, I stuffed the bottom with another piece of foam all the way to the bottom.

Not shown is the two straps that hold the seat I wrapped under this foam and back to the anchors to hold the foam in place and take up the slack in the straps.

The seat did flatten out without that plastic to support the rear part but I don't care personally as my comfort is more important.

To remove the cover, I pulled most of the staples enough to allow me to peel the cover enough. I used a 4" thick piece of foam I got from a fabric store that I cut to fit and some spray contact cement. To re-staple the cover, I needed an air stapler with short stainless staples as a regular hand stapler was not strong enough to staple through the plastic.

Now just need some snow to try this out...

 

[thelake]

Awesome job mooseman. I am a smaller guy so I have not experienced this pain you speak of. But if the time comes when the bump hurts my rump, I'm coming here.

 

[Mooseman]

I did take it out today before the rain came and it was heaven! My knees also hurt less because I could sit further back comfortably. I can still feel a little lump but I think it's the piece of metal that goes across the crease that is held down by the elastic bands. Not a big deal.

 

[Pat tremblett]

Very nice mooseman.
Being 6'1 and 225 myself I know the pain of which you speak. If you recall my post about my trip to my cabin.
I am hoping to get out on the trails this weekend coming.

 

[Mooseman]

I'm 6'2" and north of 300 so....

If you're west of the city, you should be good.