This has always been pitched as being a means of getting air circulating between your backside and the saddle, and it does a fairly good job of that, but it has a much more interesting use.
I was sitting in a Pizza restaurant in Biarritz with Rich Christoph – the lead designer on the Nightster and the Forty Eight among other things and now the Scout – and casually mentioning that there is no such thing as a seat that is comfortable for 1,000 miles, except perhaps the Victory Vision’s, he explained why that is the case.
Assuming good quality foam, it basically comes down to seams, which introduce pressure points that are not too bad at a hundred miles, or even two, but by five hundred are unpleasant. By a thousand miles, the worst can be excruciating.
So why not lose the seams?
Because they are important part of the style of the seat and, by association, the bike.
As it happens, I’d packed the Circulator and a Night Hawk air seat.
I had already made the same mistake that I usually make with the Air Hawk on the way south and put too much air in it, sitting me an inch higher than I should have been, and beyond the comfortable range of the Chieftain’s screen at full height. And because that was all at stupid o’clock in the morning on unlit French country roads, I couldn’t be bothered to keep adjusting it until it was right, so I deflated it the first stop, repacked it and just got on with racking up the miles.
On the return journey, however, I did the unthinkable and put a Harley-Davidson seat pad on an Indian seat and set off.
My reasoning was that the Circulator doesn’t just have a vented top to allow air to pass beneath you, it is based on a soft pad that is thick enough to absorb the seams of the seat beneath – and therefore the pressure points – with a negligible impact on the seat height.
There were obviously other factors at play – including different roads and muscle memory from so many hours in the saddle – but the return journey had much longer distances between stops, with no reason to put my feet down other than fuel stops and Peage booths. And my backside was just numb by Calais via Paris, from hours sitting on it, rather than screaming ‘STOP’, hoping that my legs would be in a fit state to take the weight of the bike when I did.
I’m delighted. I now know why my oem Buell and custom Shovel seats are more comfortable than they have any right to be and why others aren’t – often regardless of what seems to be a butt-friendly size and shape – although it is only really an issue when you’ve got some serious miles to cover.
And I know that the Circulator won’t be sitting on a shelf waiting for hot days anymore.
Harley-Davidson Circulator Seat Pad
Rider: 51076-10 £91.98
Passenger: 51078-10 £71.52
(Originally tested in AmV44, Jan/Feb 2011 – part of long term Fat Bob test)
www.harley-davidson.co.uk