I wanted to have a seat where I could replace the cover, stiffen the frame and customize the feel so I bought a Torker LX saddle (which is virtually identical to the Miata).
Unfortunately, I attempted to ride the Torker LX 15 miles yesterday. Even though I had on padded shorts, I was forced to call for support (to change the seat back to a Kris Holm) after about 5 miles. Ooooooooouchy.
I have decided to do the air seat conversion.
I plan to buy the parts (rather than try to home grow something).
Ironically, I am looking for low maintainence here - so I am hoping someone can tell me how to build an extremely hassle free seat. I have already opted to skip the CF frame and go with the GB4 seat stiffener (which works excellently - however the original seat hardware must be replaced).
I’d say the Gemcrest leather is the most comfortable of those three. The nylon KH covers are really small on a Miyata base. The leather cover has a considerably larger volume.
There is only one dogbone air pillow that I am aware of.
When I ordered a Roach, I got a KH which appears to be inferior to the ones I saw on other people’s unicycles that actually said Roach.
Not only that, the one I received first absolutely would not fit on my miyata base. I sent that one back a recieved a second one which barely fit. I didn’t want to sent that one back because by then, I just wanted an airseat and I’d already been waiting over a month between shipping, receiving, sending back, and receiving again.
I highly DON’T recommend the KH cover (which is what you get when you order a Roach)
The KH cover is made by Roach. It rocks. I have it on my Coker. Fits good and snug. Better than the old Roach covers that I have on my muni and trials. The new drawstring on the new KH seat covers works better than the older Roach seat covers (they basically slipped on and then you laced them up like a shoe to get them tight).
The KH cover fits on my carbon fiber seat base. I haven’t tried it on a Miyata seat base. It is a snug fit on the CV seat base, but that’s a good thing. The snug fit means that it doesn’t bunch up as much when you sit on it. The CF seat base is pretty much the same size and shape as the Miyata seat base so I would expect the KH seat cover to also fit the Miyata seat base.
It sounds like you got a better version of the KH than I, or at least bigger. With mine, the drawstring is useless. The cover just barely fits on, and I used the original Miyata metal clips to hold it in place. I removed the string altogether.
From what I heard, the manufacturing of these covers is inconsistent.
I would recommend an air seat design like in my airseat gallery.
It’s a very nice seat for both muni and Coker. You can play around with things to make it comfortable for you. The shape of the foam makes a big difference. The Miyata foam works great on my muni, but did not work well at all on my Coker. I put Schwinn foam in my Coker seat and it was much better. I’m going to try the foam from a Viscount to see how well that works.
The only commercially available air pillow is that dogbone shaped one at Unicycle.com. You should be able to use the dogbone pillow and sew it in half so it’s a single layer pillow and then add foam on top. That saves you from having to make an air pillow from scratch. But I have not tried the modified dogbone pillow, so I don’t know how well that would work.
I found the KH “Roach” cover to work very well. I tried a Gemcrest leather cover and it was too loose and floppy for my tastes. The KH “Roach” cover is much more snug and holds the seat together much better. The Gemcrest leather cover has a lot more volume in it. It is taller and fits more loosely on the seat base.
Seat preferences are a strange thing. What works great for one person may not work well at all for another. Some people prefer the low volume air seats that are made with a lower volume seat cover and just an inner tube wrapped in duct tape or stuffed in an old sock. Whatever works. No guarantees.
Will someone please explain what the KH saddle cover is, or show me a picture of it? Is it the same as the Roach one? I can’t see it anywhere on the US nor UK Unicycle.com sites. I did see a Miyata seat recently with a very tight Roach-looking cover on it, but the cover didn’t have the Roach label nor a KH label on it. I just ordered a Roach saddle cover - I wonder what I’m going to get…
However, I’m not confused about the single layer air pillow: I have made two of these. It involved cutting the stock dog bone in half and sewing on an extra section. Simply sewing straight across the halved dog bone results in a too short pillow. I’ve had no problems with my modified single layer air pillows. They fit a 12" inner tube.
You’re going to get a KH cover and it’s likely going to be rather small for a double layer pillow. It may work quite well with your single layer pillow.
The “stealth” cover you saw was a KH that was even smaller than normal due to some mfg quirk.