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Sargent’s World Sport Performance S 1000 XR seat By Steven M. Green #198919 SWITCHING FROM THE STOCK SEAT ON MY S 1000 XR TO
the Sargent seat, my highly calibrated ‘butt-o-meter’ registered a 250 percent increase in comfort. Specifically, I’m usually fidgety after about 200 miles with the stock seat on my XR, but with the comfort built into the Sargent, I was still going strong at 500 miles. I’ll get into the reasons why in a minute, but first I’m going to have to attempt to answer the question some fellow XR owners asked, “Why can’t BMW build a seat this comfortable?” If you want to be highly analytical, every motorcycle is a series of compromises in one way or another. A production motorcycle must meet all kinds of criteria including cost, performance,
Sargent seat in foreground vs. stock seat in background.
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BMW OWNERS NEWS | November 2020
weight, government restrictions, seating position, styling, and suitability of purpose. In the case of seats, if you were to only use a bike for relaxed, long-distance touring, then you would want a seat that didn’t offer a rider the ability to move around a bunch but would cradle you in upright sitting comfort. On the other hand, if you like to ride in a style where you constantly move around, such as off-roading or canyon carving, a smaller seat profile facilitates body shifting. The Sargent seat cradles you, yet doesn’t interfere with spirited canyon runs. Also, all manufacturers also have cost targets. As you’ll be able to see, this seat is quite a bit more expensive to manufacture than a stock seat. So, while the stock seat is reasonably good, the Sargent is great!
