Protecting my Seat!



You must be doing well for yourself, Sven, if you can afford $500 saddles and $100,000 cars. Myself, I've got a $35 saddle and a 10 year old pickup that was $18,000 new. I appreciate you telling us about this product, but I'm going to have to stick with my 10 cent Ziploc freezer bag, not so much to protect the seat as to give my backside something dry to sit on after parking my bike outdoors. The same garage that protects my pickup from the elements is also where my bike sits 95% of the time that I'm not riding it.
 
Originally Posted by Myosmith .

You must be doing well for yourself, Sven, if you can afford $500 saddles and $100,000 cars. Myself, I've got a $35 saddle and a 10 year old pickup that was $18,000 new. I appreciate you telling us about this product, but I'm going to have to stick with my 10 cent Ziploc freezer bag, not so much to protect the seat as to give my backside something dry to sit on after parking my bike outdoors. The same garage that protects my pickup from the elements is also where my bike sits 95% of the time that I'm not riding it.

Just because you're doing well doesn't necessarily mean you spend money frivolously, I know multi millionaires that drive in cars worth less then your pickup! And they bought them at least 8 years old!! I do the same thing, my newest vehicle is a 98 Ford F150SC I bought about 3 years ago for my wife. Why do I or my friends do this sort of thing? One word: depreciation. I refuse to buy a new car or one that is newer then 10 years old myself. A car that depreciates is a poor investment, if you most have one depreciate you want one where most of the depreciation has been taken out of it in age. So mostly people that run around bragging about $500 saddles, (those saddles had a limited 100 production run so I doubt he has one); and then yak about their $100,000 cars are either: A) lying, or B) very insecure, or C) both. I can tell by the way he's handled his postings, he's not who he says he is.

By the way, the car I drive most of the time is either the 73 Chrysler Newport 4 door in the winter or the 79 Chevy Z28 in the summer. I try to buy cars that will appreciate, but in this economy that isn't working real well, but it's still works far better then buying a new car.
 
Originally Posted by Froze .




A car that depreciates is a poor investment, if you most have one depreciate you want one where most of the depreciation has been taken out of it in age.

Uh, huh. That's only the case if someone's investment "values" are exactly like yours. Alas, they're not, and again you seem to confuse your opinion with fact, making statements that you can't objectively support. Other people might actually value other aspects of newer cars that you don't. Imagine that!
 
Hey SvenDH I am right there with you. I spent the weekend at OuterBike in Moab, Utah. It poured down rain all night Friday. If I didn't have my 'saddle armor' on my bike seat I would have had a cold wet ride Saturday morning when I climbed on my bike to ride Slick Rock. Best investment I ever made for my bike and at less than $20.00 bucks. I too spent way too much money and too much time breaking in my Terry saddle to have to replace it anytime soon. It may not be a $300.00 seat but the $150.00 I spent was enough for me.

Keith
 
Just because you're doing well doesn't necessarily mean you spend money frivolously
Very true and I apologize to anyone who took offense to my comment.

I was irked a bit by others' comments earlier in this thread that came across as critical of people who use plastic bags as seat protectors instead of $15 + designer neoprene covers. A person might choose to use the free/inexpensive route for a number of reasons: out of necessity, to be frugal, or as a "green" statement minimizing waste through repurposing. I have nothing against someone purchasing a neoprene seat cover if that's what they want. I also have nothing against someone purchasing a $500 saddle or a $100,000 car. At the same time I have nothing against a guy with a $100 used bike with a WalMart bag over the seat, in the back of a 1989 Ford Ranger. It's all about character, not bling.
 
But I do bet we'd all question a guy who has a $100 used bike with a $500 saddle and a $15 cover.
 
Originally Posted by Altitude Adjust .

Hey SvenDH I am right there with you. I spent the weekend at OuterBike in Moab, Utah. It poured down rain all night Friday. If I didn't have my 'saddle armor' on my bike seat I would have had a cold wet ride Saturday morning when I climbed on my bike to ride Slick Rock. Best investment I ever made for my bike and at less than $20.00 bucks. I too spent way too much money and too much time breaking in my Terry saddle to have to replace it anytime soon. It may not be a $300.00 seat but the $150.00 I spent was enough for me.

Keith
That 0.02 inch of rain that they had out there last Friday night was sure a heavy downpour? Huh...

Your Terry saddle is not a big honking Brook leather beast. You break in a Brooks, the leather stretches and somewhat conforms to the required shape... with all other saddles, Terry included, it breaks you in. Unless your 'tail-gas' is that hot that it can remold the thermoset plastic in your saddle that is.
 
Originally Posted by Altitude Adjust .

Hey SvenDH I am right there with you. I spent the weekend at OuterBike in Moab, Utah. It poured down rain all night Friday. If I didn't have my 'saddle armor' on my bike seat I would have had a cold wet ride Saturday morning when I climbed on my bike to ride Slick Rock. Best investment I ever made for my bike and at less than $20.00 bucks. I too spent way too much money and too much time breaking in my Terry saddle to have to replace it anytime soon. It may not be a $300.00 seat but the $150.00 I spent was enough for me.

Keith

Joined Yesterday.

I expect a whole host of new comers supporting the seat cover. How can a seat cover the the best investment ever made for a bike?
 
Originally Posted by Altitude Adjust .

Hey SvenDH I am right there with you. I spent the weekend at OuterBike in Moab, Utah. It poured down rain all night Friday. If I didn't have my 'saddle armor' on my bike seat I would have had a cold wet ride Saturday morning when I climbed on my bike to ride Slick Rock. Best investment I ever made for my bike and at less than $20.00 bucks. I too spent way too much money and too much time breaking in my Terry saddle to have to replace it anytime soon. It may not be a $300.00 seat but the $150.00 I spent was enough for me.

Keith
Awesome! Another first post from someone nearly orgasming over their seat cover!
 
Originally Posted by alienator .

Uh, huh. That's only the case if someone's investment "values" are exactly like yours. Alas, they're not, and again you seem to confuse your opinion with fact, making statements that you can't objectively support. Other people might actually value other aspects of newer cars that you don't. Imagine that!

I'll give you that one to a degree! But the definition of investment is what? A true investment in done in hopes to make a profit. A good investment makes a profit, a bad investment loses money. So you're right, a new car is a investment, but taking depreciation into account it's a bad investment. Of course a new car will get you to work and back..at least we hope it will and getting to work is an investment to make money, but you can do the same thing without the big loss of money associated with a new car. But I'm not confusing facts at all, a new car will and does depreciate rapidly over the first 5 years and it's why a lot of people who get loans for new cars then have it totaled in an accident are upside down on their loan, which means they still owe money on the car after the insurance company paid the insurance on it. So now they have to buy another new car and have the balance of the old car put onto the new car now their worst off then before. The average new car loses 65% of it's value over 5 years, some cars depreciate 35% just in the first year alone. If I sold you stocks for $45,000 and told you you're going to lose 65% of it's value over the next 5 years would you buy it? Problem is most people have no clue of the amount of depreciation that is hitting them on a new car. And the 65% is just an average, some cars lose less then that and some more then that. So it could benefit a person who has to have a new car to look for cars that depreciate less then others.

Now I admit I'm a little extreme in that I won't buy anything newer the 10 years, but most people can easily buy a 5 year old car and eliminate and average of 65% of the depreciation and still have a low mileage great running car if they shop around.

I'm not stopping you from buying a new car, I have friends that do that too. So what? But if you must buy a new car the best thing to do is to keep the car for a long long time, like more then 15 years which is past the average 7 years. Just keep it well maintained.
 
Originally Posted by Froze .





I'll give you that one to a degree! But the definition of investment is what? A true investment in done in hopes to make a profit.

Now I admit I'm a little extreme in that I won't buy anything newer the 10 years, but most people can easily buy a 5 year old car and eliminate and average of 65% of the depreciation and still have a low mileage great running car if they shop around.

I'm not stopping you from buying a new car, I have friends that do that too. So what? But if you must buy a new car the best thing to do is to keep the car for a long long time, like more then 15 years which is past the average 7 years. Just keep it well maintained.
That's only a financial investment. I know a lot of folks who, like me, invested a lot of money racing motorcycles. The investment was in the experience, not in some future profit, save for the profit from having a lot of fun. A true investment is not necessarily a financial investment since the definition of investment is not necessarily a financial definition.

For a significant number of folks, investment in a more fuel efficient car is worthwhile investment. Likewise, some value the investment in a car that has very low emissions.
 
Originally Posted by AlanG .

But I do bet we'd all question a guy who has a $100 used bike with a $500 saddle and a $15 cover.

What if, (notice the key word if?) what if the rider needed a $500 seat per doctors orders so he could continue to ride his $100 bike? Obviously I'm being absurd!!
 
Originally Posted by alienator .

That's only a financial investment. I know a lot of folks who, like me, invested a lot of money racing motorcycles. The investment was in the experience, not in some future profit, save for the profit from having a lot of fun. A true investment is not necessarily a financial investment since the definition of investment is not necessarily a financial definition.

For a significant number of folks, investment in a more fuel efficient car is worthwhile investment. Likewise, some value the investment in a car that has very low emissions.

I'm not disagreeing with Alien being, I fully understand what you're saying...WOW, I must be taking drugs!! Anywho, you raced motorcycles and I use to race cars, I no longer race cars because I was spending way too much money with nothing in return for it...this obviously wasn't pro level racing or otherwise I would have became a millionaire doing that, you might be a pro rider and thus it's been a great profitable occupation for you thus a good investment. The experience was fun, but was it worth the money looking back on it? NO!! I wasted a lot of money that could have been used to get me along a lot further in life. So the experience was fun but it wasn't a worthwhile investment.

Is spending $30,000 dollars on a car that gets 50mpg worth buying vs a car that gets 18mpg that cost $5,000? No. You will never recoup the cost of the new $30k from the difference in fuel savings. So lets assume you average 12,000 miles a year and buy a 30k hybrid and you average 50mpg, thus in the first year you spent $960 in fuel. And I buy a 5k older car that gets 18mpg thus I spend $2660 in fuel. That's a difference of 1,708 a year in fuel that I spend more then you. We both keep our cars for 10 years. You spend $9,600 and I spend $26,680 in fuel in 10 years. You could argue that I spent as much in fuel as the new car cost, but I didn't because you have to add the 30k to your fuel costing you almost 40k, whereas my end cost is almost 32k I'm still ahead. But wait it doesn't end there, because now at the end of 10 years we decide to sell our cars, you sell yours for 5k and I sell mine for 1k (assuming no classic value), so now you lost 25k in depreciation and I lost 4k so now the end cost for your car is 65k, mine is 33k so your loss is at 32k. But your lost doesn't end there, because most people buy new cars with loans thus interest is charged so that amount could be 0 if the program exist for that car, on up depending on credit rating of the individual buying the car, but I'll leave that out of the equation due to too many variables so for our sake's it's just 0. So in the long run my gas guzzling car saves me more money then a high fuel efficient car.

I used some figures that would actually benefit you more in my example because most people only keep their cars for 7 years, had I used the 7 year average you would have came out a lot worse in the end.

Now you, or I, could really win big time if we chose to buy a used 80's era Chevy Sprint or Metro that got 40mpg. Assuming we could find one in good condition which these cars didn't fair well over time, most of those are now in junk yards now.

Sorry, but I think differently then most Americans on this subject, but I don't have any personal debt either so I guess that makes me really odd.
 
Thankfully, some folks just value doing the better thing--investing in a vehicle that uses less gas and pollutes less--and for them, that is the ideal investment. I'm not interested in why people invest for financial profit.
 
Originally Posted by alienator .

Thankfully, some folks just value doing the better thing--investing in a vehicle that uses less gas and pollutes less--and for them, that is the ideal investment. I'm not interested in why people invest for financial profit.

You're not interested in financial profit?

And what is doing the better thing mean? buying a new car every 7 years is better then keeping an old car for 30, 40, 50 years or more? when you consider how much pollution was created each 7 years to make your new car the older car is way less destructive on the environment. All you see is the tailpipe emissions, you don't see all the factories all over world that produced parts to go into just one car, and some of those parts came from countries that don't give one hoot about pollution they spew out. Not to mention all the different forms of transportation pollution used to transport the parts from all over the world to the final assembly plant. And not to mention the consuming of natural resources to keep building new cars. So you just keep your eye on the tailpipe and remain blind to all the pollution your car really made to be made.
 
Originally Posted by Froze .





You're not interested in financial profit?

And what is doing the better thing mean? buying a new car every 7 years is better then keeping an old car for 30, 40, 50 years or more? when you consider how much pollution was created each 7 years to make your new car the older car is way less destructive on the environment. All you see is the tailpipe emissions, you don't see all the factories all over world that produced parts to go into just one car, and some of those parts came from countries that don't give one hoot about pollution they spew out. Not to mention all the different forms of transportation pollution used to transport the parts from all over the world to the final assembly plant. And not to mention the consuming of natural resources to keep building new cars. So you just keep your eye on the tailpipe and remain blind to all the pollution your car really made to be made.
That's the argument you want to have, that somehow speaking about tailpipe emission is exactly the same as talking about waste and pollution of factories, waste and pollution in parts transport, and the consumption of natural resources to build new cars? Really, you're going to assume that my statement about tailpipe emissions was all encompassing like that? You're assuming and conflating a lot, and in the process just making noise. It's a common tactic and one that fails because it is not on point and it presumes way too much.
 
Originally Posted by Altitude Adjust .

Hey SvenDH I am right there with you. I spent the weekend at OuterBike in Moab, Utah. It poured down rain all night Friday. If I didn't have my 'saddle armor' on my bike seat I would have had a cold wet ride Saturday morning when I climbed on my bike to ride Slick Rock. Best investment I ever made for my bike and at less than $20.00 bucks. I too spent way too much money and too much time breaking in my Terry saddle to have to replace it anytime soon. It may not be a $300.00 seat but the $150.00 I spent was enough for me.

Keith
Thats just great Keith. Your 150 dollar saddle was protected while your 2500 dollar bike was not. Use an effing paper towel from the hotel mens room and dry it all off.
Nice try SvenDH.
 
Originally Posted by alienator .

That's the argument you want to have, that somehow speaking about tailpipe emission is exactly the same as talking about waste and pollution of factories, waste and pollution in parts transport, and the consumption of natural resources to build new cars? Really, you're going to assume that my statement about tailpipe emissions was all encompassing like that? You're assuming and conflating a lot, and in the process just making noise. It's a common tactic and one that fails because it is not on point and it presumes way too much.
Your argument is the one that failed, so as to make it appear has it hasn't you pass the ball, it's common tactic that fails because you have no point in arguing against what I said. You're narrow minded, so to try to make your argument valid you just want to look at tailpipe emissions and ignore the real evil behind it. It's kind of like standing in a valley with your men facing war, you see a lone enemy soldier on a hill top and you tell the others, look it's just one man against 9 or 10 in your squad, what you don't see is the 600 man battalion behind the hill.
 
Originally Posted by Froze .




Your argument is the one that failed, so as to make it appear has it hasn't you pass the ball, it's common tactic that fails because you have no point in arguing against what I said. You're narrow minded, so to try to make your argument valid you just want to look at tailpipe emissions and ignore the real evil behind it. It's kind of like standing in a valley with your men facing war, you see a lone enemy soldier on a hill top and you tell the others, look it's just one man against 9 or 10 in your squad, what you don't see is the 600 man battalion behind the hill.
Sure. You couldn't argue emissions and you moved on to something else for which you have/had no supporting data. Typical.
 
Originally Posted by Froze .





You're not interested in financial profit?

And what is doing the better thing mean? buying a new car every 7 years is better then keeping an old car for 30, 40, 50 years or more? when you consider how much pollution was created each 7 years to make your new car the older car is way less destructive on the environment. All you see is the tailpipe emissions, you don't see all the factories all over world that produced parts to go into just one car, and some of those parts came from countries that don't give one hoot about pollution they spew out. Not to mention all the different forms of transportation pollution used to transport the parts from all over the world to the final assembly plant. And not to mention the consuming of natural resources to keep building new cars. So you just keep your eye on the tailpipe and remain blind to all the pollution your car really made to be made.
When you consider that LA has a 1/3 less ozone due to pollution than they did in the 1950's despite having over 3 times the number of vehicles, we'll just consider your argument to be asinine and based upon no evidence whatsoever. Data for air particulates is similar. Extrapolate that factoid about LA to other major cities within the US and even to other countries around the world (well, the ones that give a hoot) and you'll realize that driving your 1960s or 70s jallopy isn't the best thing for the environment.

Most of the countries that give two sh1ts about vehicle pollution also care about the pollution from factories. If you care that much then don't buy products that have parts from Whoflungdung in the middle of Asia, or elsewhere, where such environmental laws may not be in effect.

Not as destructive to the environment? I remember back in the 80's when the news was acid rain and the deforestation of parts of German caused primarily by vehicle and industrial emissions in the countries to the west. A reduction in emissions, despite an increase in the number of vehicles on the road and a great use of fossil fuels for industrial use, especially in coal/oil burning power stations throughout Europe is further evidence that you're dealing the losing hand once again.

Yeah, I have a late 60's muscle car - but it has a 21st century engine under the hood. ;)