Comfort or Style

Don and I had the opportunity to ride our bikes quite a bit in Ketchikan. Our bikes are compact and fold small enough for us to take them along on the boat. Now even though they are small, on our boat they still take up valuable space. The benefit of having them along, however, more than outweighs the space they take.

After riding about two miles into town on our first day in Ketchikan we decided that the seats on the bikes were not comfortable enough for either of us so while we were at Tongass Trading we looked at bike seats. There, on the wall, was one really wide seat and some smaller seats with gel padding. Don suggested that I should get the wide seat. Glaring at him I immediately resisted, thinking it would not look good on our small bikes. I suggested that the seats with the gel padding would probably be good for both of us so we bought two. In actuality there were very nice wider (but not as wide as the one on the wall) seats on the bikes they had at the store, but we weren’t in the market for new bikes, just seats.

The next morning, Don installed the seats we had purchased and we set out to town again. Very quickly I knew that the new seat was only slightly better than the original seats so we rode about 2.5 miles to Wal-Mart to see if they had any other bike seats. When we got there we found one wider (but still not as wide as the seat on the wall at the other store) which also had gel padding. It was more like the seats we had seen on the bikes the day before. We were disappointed they only had one but we bought it anyway.

Back to the marina we rode where Don again changed out my seat and installed the second new seat for me. Then we rode the other way again to the original store to return the first new seat. As we rode, I realized that the gel padding wasn’t as soft as I had thought it would be and I was noticing some definite pressure points. When we got to the store, I told Don I think we should go ahead and get the wide seat. (Yes the really wide seat on the wall!) Don reassured me that he was fine with the seat that he had and didn’t want me to feel like I had to do that because there was only one seat at Wal-Mart. After convincing Don that I was serious, we bought it and headed back to the marina again.

There, Don, again, changed out my seat and installed the really wide seat on my bike. Once he was done he asked me to it try out and see what I thought. After riding it I found that this seat was the best yet. While my pride was wounded I have to say that this fat-bottom girl is happy to have the really wide seat that had been mocking me from the wall. Now I’m sure I can ride wherever we want to go in comfort if not style.