Seat-o-rama!

I would say the highest quality seat around (notice i did not say
available) is the old style Miyata. (the wide style) These are about 3 or 4
years old and once in a rare while some of them become available, recently
due to Miyata clearing out their warehouses in the us. They are very
comfortable, or as comfy as a unicycle seat can be, and their only drawback
is their lack of strength. They're fine if you just awant a seat to ride
from point a to point b but if you plan on learning tricks on your uni,
especially seat out in front, you'll bend the hell out of it. This is a
rather common problem, i've seen it happen to people who don't even hardly
ride. Fortunatly there are also lots of solutions to this problem. Many
MANY people put steel or aluminum plates inside of the seats and secure
them by use of bolts. I've seen the bolting of PVC to seats to fix them
also. Lastly, the Puerto Ricans coat their seats with fiberglass. This is
how i chose to tackle the problem and have had relatively good luck with
the seat. It's lighter that metal, it coats the entire seat and not just
the top, and it's just fun to play with fiberglass. It only cost about $10
and took a few hours to do. I broke the fiberglass at nationals (sigh) and
went to redo it when i returned home. I now have about 1/2 inch of
fiberglass on my seat and it feels like a rock. Absolutely no flex in the
sucker. It made it slightly hard to put the seat cover back on but it fits
nicely now.

Anyway, i like it and it gives your seat a nice tone when it hits the
floor! It also helps out with a lot of tricks. I doubted that a "firmer"
seat could make tricks easier but it does. here's the summary of things:

good: nice sound when seat hits floor rather inexpensive strong seat fun to
play with fiberglass lighter and more reinforcment that metal.

bad: Fiberglass only can take so much then it cracks and needs to be redone
whereas metal can be rebent. too much fiberglass can give you cancer

I was just going to write a paragraph or so but went a little overboard. Oh
well, off to bed in freezing madison wisconsin (30 degrees tonight!)
(that's a little less that 0 to you metric folk)

To anyone who cares: I went out to ride yesterday night and lo, riding
toward me up the street was the unicycling mailing lists Dirk Iwema(sp?) It
was kind of a surprise to see another unicyclist in madison, and it was
especialy wierd because i met Dirk in Bowling Green and to see him riding
up the street? Too much for me, what a small world it is. Karl!

//-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-* \\
o o o o :* Karl Frankowski *: o o o o // // /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ *: Unicyclist
Without :* /|\ /|\ /|\ /|\ \\ \\ << << << << :* a club! *: >> >> >> >> // // O
O O O *: (Unimail@njackn.Com) :* O O O O \\
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Kevlar works very well also. It is lighter and stronger than 'glass slightly
harder to work with and takes a lot more abuse.

A lot less kevlar is needed for equal strength. It is also beneficial to change
the direction of the roving with each layer - no matter what material you use.

Eric