[Jeff Higgins]

So, my wife and I have been pining for a new seat on our 2013 Road King. Not that the stock seat is all that bad, we've been riding on it for five years, after all. We are simply both finding that as we get older, and our backsides perhaps a bit less tolerant, we just couldn't comfortably do the miles we used to.

Enter the H-D seat demo program. All you have to do is show up at your local dealership and trade your seat for one of their demo models. We spent the day Monday riding two different touring specific models, the "Sundowner" (their most popular) and the "Hammock", a rather unique design that suspends rider and passenger like, well, a hammock.

After just over a hundred miles on each, we decided on the Hammock, so I picked one up yesterday. Spent this morning putting about 200 miles on it solo. What a comfortable seat. I think we are really going to enjoy it.

What a program as well. So much better than blindly buying a new seat, hoping it will be better, or just sitting on one at the dealership to "try it out". Real miles, on a real road, on our bike, how we like to ride. What a grand idea.

So, tell me, does any other manufacturer offer anything at all like this? Oh, I know, I can hear the haters already - "H-D only has to because their seats really suck..." yadda yadda yadda... To those, I will offer this - BMW R series touring seats are notorious in the touring motorcycle world for being just about one of the worst torture devices to ever come out of Germany, making some of the Nazi's efforts pale in comparison. Companies like Corbin, Sergeant, Mustang, etc. do fairly well supplying aftermarket seats for all makes - you just don't get to try them first.