Mileage: 12,753
After riding more than 2200 miles in 10 days, the verdict is in on the new Sargent seat. It’s good! The first day was the longest — 430 miles. Sure I needed to move around a bit on the seat to keep from getting stiff but, at the end of the trip I can honestly say that the seat is up to the task in terms of comfort; I was never sore. Cold, yes, but a new sleeping bag should solve that problem.
The seat does have one cosmetic problem. The fabric developed diagonal, crease marks on both sides of the seat. I’m guessing this must be where two pieces of foam are joined. What’s interesting is that these showed up as sharp creases in the first 100 miles. They’re actually less pronounced now. I might give Sargent a call and see what they have to say about this.
I had zero problems with the new wiring. There were several places where heated clothing came in handy, particularly around Mt. Bachelor in Oregon where snow was piled up on both sides of the road and it was a rather chilly 43 degF.
I couldn’t have done the trip without the Kaoko throttle lock. It not only gives me the ability to take the pressure off my wrist on the open road, but on the bumpy bits I used it to smooth out the otherwise twitchy throttle. I was also using a CrampBuster, but ended up taking it off the throttle grip about half way through the trip.
The bike ran great, averaging 52 mpg. I didn’t have to add any oil. Both tires were losing about 0.5 PSI/day at the beginning of the trip, but were stable by the end. The only problem on the trip was a burned out low-beam headlight, which was quickly fixed after quick stop at NAPA Auto. Now it’s time to do the 12k mile service and get the bike ready for the next 2000 mile trip into British Columbia.