New Saddle; Happy Butt

Ever since I bought the GTV, I've been a little unsettled about the leather saddle on this particular scooter. I like having unique items, but not when they don't perform as they should.

This particular saddle is not the same as other GTV scooters I've seen, being an orange color, almost like a basketball, instead of the normal medium brown. That's OK, but what's worse is that the leather itself is also so thin that it tends to wrinkles up under my butt on rides of any length. This can get uncomfortable and looks cheap.

Additionally, the foam padding feels to be not very dense. As a result, it deforms easily under my weight. I notice this happening when slowing the scoot when coming to a stop in particular. As my weight shifts forward in response to the deceleration, I find the front of the saddle deforming and letting me slide forward and almost off the front of the saddle. I'm well aware of this happening with a poorly adjusted bicycle saddle. In that case, the remedy is to angle up the saddle slightly in the front, an adjustment that is easy enough to do with a decent-quality bicycle seatpost, but not apparent at first on this scooter. I examined the saddle and determined that I could insert a set of spacers under the nose and thus slightly raise the angle in the front. I haven't done that yet, but had intended to hit the hardware store this weekend for a set of longer bolts and spacers.

I casually mentioned my displeasure of the saddle's construction to the Vespa salesman earlier this week, but figured there was nothing more that could be done, short of ordering the $900 seat myself, and I wasn't that displeased. Well, two days later, I received a call from the Service department of Utah Vespa saying that my replacement saddle had arrived.

Wow. What quick service!!

Two-day turn-around in response to a vague complaint is remarkable. I didn't figure the salesman would go to the trouble to warranty the original saddle, but he must have. Great customer service indeed.

Well, everything isn't always as it initially appears. As it turns out, the mechanic who uncrated and performed the initial assembly on the scoot noticed the same issues as I. He placed a defect replacement order at that time; it was in response to his request that the saddle was shipped.

Regardless, I rode in to the dealership yesterday afternoon and swapped the old for the new. What a difference!! The new saddle is more attractive in color, being a medium brown instead of orange and thus should be easier to purchase other leather accessories to match. In addition, it appears to be made of substantially thicker leather that holds its shape much better. The saddle itself is firmer and therefore more comfortable; I wonder if it has different foam padding as compared to the original. It sure feels like it.

I do like the difference. I'll have to pay particular attention to the firmness of the padding over the next few days to see if I need to apply the tilt modification to this saddle or not.