Products and Services

Review of the AIRHAWK Seat Cushion

By Brad Connatser, ISRA #14726

Butt and Seat: A Love/Hate Relationship
My buttocks and my will to ride are like demons and angels fighting on my stock tractor seat. I love to ride my stock V-Star 1100 Classic, but my rear end gets bummed out after about 30 minutes of interstate travel. The area south of the small of my back and north of the valley goes numb. If I don't stop and indulge my primate instincts to stand, I start to feel a dull pain as well, which distracts me from the joy of riding. What to do?

"That's easy," you may say. "Buy a better seat. Get a Corbin or a Mustang." People love their third-party seats. When someone posts about third-party seats on the ISRA forum, exclamation points abound. "I can't live without my Mustang!!!!!" But a third-party seat can be expensive (over $400 for the models acclaimed on the ISRA forum). Even so, I'm not guaranteed the comfort I so desperately seek. Perhaps I have a bottom that is what statisticians call an outlier--a sample very far from being "average." In fact, on a long haul to Kentucky, I was thinking just that--my posterior must be among the most frail on earth. So did I plunk down 400 Washingtons for a new bottom cradle? Not on your life!!!!!

A Cheaper Alternative
Thumbing through a J&P Cycles catalog one day, I came across the AIRHAWK Motorcycle Cushion, which J&P was selling for about $160. The more I read about this accessory, the more I agreed with the concept: Floating my rump on a cushion of air cells would relieve the intense pressure between the seat of my bike and the seat of my pants. As the manufacturer of the cushion says:

"The last mile feels like the first, thanks to AIRHAWK's exclusive DRY FLOATATION technology. Patented system eliminates painful pressure points and promote consistent blood flow for a longer, more comfortable ride. Memory foam can't do it. Gel seats can't do it. Only genuine AIRHAWK can do it. And it's portable - use it anywhere else you sit."

--http://www.rohoinc.com/recreational/index.jsp

AIRHAWK's Cushion Features DRY FLOTATION Technology

If there were such an event as "whipping out a credit card" at the Olympics, I would have earned a gold medal. I was on a Web site and entering my credit card number in a state of euphoria. Did I pay extra for the fastest shipping method possible? Damn straight. In two days, I received my genuine AIRHAWK cushion--just in time for a little ride I now like to call "the floatation fiasco."

(Non?) Performance
The instructions for the AIRHAWK are very clear. You should not fill the matrix of airtight cells full of air but only with enough air to keep the top of the cells from touching the bottom of the cells. With such little air in the AIRHAWK, it appears to be limp and hardly promising. I overfilled the cushion on purpose so that I could adjust the height of the cells downward as I sat on the cushion and incrementally released its air through an adjustable air nozzle. Once I got the cushion adjusted, I plopped it onto my tractor seat, mounted my bike, and took off for a thirty-minute ride.

Airhawk Seat Cushion Installed as Instructed

At first, I was encouraged. Fifteen minutes into the ride and no pain. But after 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 30 minutes, the familiar sensation evolved. On the return trip home, I slumped over the gas tank in disappointment. I parked my bike in the garage and flung the AIRHAWK onto a shelf.

But Wait
I didn't use the AIRHAWK for a long time after that experiment. Not until I moved into a condominium and unpacked the AIRHAWK from a box labeled "garage stuff" did I figure out the root of the failure. Having an outlier backside, I looked at the problem not from the angle described in the AIRHAWK literature but from my own singular experience with the numb-butt syndrome.

I've been riding motorcycles for a long time, on and off since I was twelve. I used to take long rides on my Yamaha 125 street/trail bike, and I don't recall ever having my bottom doze off while traveling on this bike or any bike that I owned (and I've owned seven). So what's the difference? Is it age? I didn't think so. It was the seat. Take a good look at the photo below. Notice the area spanning this anonymous rider's blue jeans. That's the area that goes numb on my bum. On this kind of seat--which is the only kind I ever sat on until I got my V-Star--there is no pressure on that area. No pressure, no pain. But on the cruiser shown next, the back of the seat builds upward, and that bulk of foam is the culprit of my discomfort.

The Dead Zone From Riding on a Stock V-Star Seat

Pretty but Painful Stock V-Star 1000 Classic Seat

Yep, I thought, I'll have to get a new seat. But then I thought, you know, when I rode those motorcycles with the no-frills seats, my bottom shared the load with my hamstrings, the backs of the top of my legs. So I once again installed the AIRHAWK, but this time I scooted it up onto the tank such that its back end did not touch the scoop of the seat. Now, when I saddled up, I sat a little closer to the tank, but the dead zone of my backside was touching neither the AIRHAWK nor the seat. In this configuration, the AIRHAWK did provide some relief, although I still felt some numbness when I drove for more than 45 minutes.

Creating An Air Pocket for Better Bum Circulation

The Perfect Combination
Recently, I purchased, installed, and reviewed a product from BikerBrackets.com (see the review at Star Cruiser Issue 6.4). These kick-out pegs mount on the bottom of the floorboards. For in-town riding, I leave them retracted, but when I plan to travel for more than an hour, I kick out the pegs. I don't use them like most people use pegs. I've seen people riding their hogs and metric cruisers with their legs all stretched out. That's fine, but the reason I bought these pegs is so that I can press hard against them and thus lift my bottom off the seat for a few seconds, thus allowing my circulatory system to recovery down below. On a recent trip to Asheville, North Carolina, I tested my theory on a little ride I now like to call "levitation heaven." (I don't really give my trips names, but it seems appropriate for making my points.)

Conclusion
Testing my theory was a smashing success. I rode all the way to Mars Hill (just north of Asheville) with only one stop for fuel. Riding along at the speed limit (yeah, right), I would sit in my normal position--feet firmly on the floorboards--for about twenty minutes or so. Then, I would push my bottom off the AIRHAWK for less than a minute. I could feel the blood rushing into starved capillaries. That was all it took. I felt as though I could ride forever.

So if you are considering purchasing the AIRHAWK, caveat emptor (let the buyer beware). I did not have much success using the AIRHAWK as it was designed to be used. But then again, I didn't really use the kick-out pegs as they were designed to be used (although I did test them as they were designed to be used for my review of them). It was simply a happy meeting between two contraptions that helped me to obtain outer peace. My recommendation for anyone suffering the numb-butt syndrome is to find someone who has installed a third-party seat and then ride the bike. It will be more difficult, I think, to find someone who has purchased an AIRHAWK cushion, but if you can, it is a simple matter of placing it on your own bike to determine whether it works for you or not (the cushion has a non-skid surface and stays put very well). If you're like me and don't have any friends, then do the research. Go to local motorcycle dealers to see if they have any used motorcycles with third-party seats installed. Or perhaps you can find an accessory dealer that stocks the AIRHAWK cushion. In any event, be it known that when it comes to motorcycle mounting, one seat does not fit all.