comfort for the elderly

[haynesjones66]

i've spent the last few weeks messing about with bits of ali and wood, attempting to get a temporary comfortable seating position for my decrepit-ness but i just cant get it right. the pipes are in the way mostly, but the tank position is also an issue and i'm sitting all wrong. almost at the point of giving up methinks. however, i sat on a ktm superduke 990 today and it's absolutely perfect for me. anybody else tried one? its tiny in comparison to the storm and you sit practically over the bars. not ideal for commuting i guess, but great as a weekend toy. think i need to do a bank job....

[sirch345]

A shame you couldn't get your idea to work as you wanted, but at least you gave it a go

Sitting on a KTM Superduke 990 is now going to be a slippery slope

Chris.

[grumpyfrog]

I've not jumped on the 990, nor deliberately sat on the 890 smt, for a bloody reason cause the 790 duke has the , "yip, that's it" from the moment I sat on Kennys in NI.
Much as I hate to say it, it's doss.

[integerspin]

I didn't know what a KTM superduke was and had to google it. I am trying to stick to speed limits now I am old.
How absurd is it going though the village at 30mph when a lot more is fine.
I looked at the pic of the superduke, they look very like the tidy litte little orange thing I saw in the
davies plastics car park last time I went there, I think it might have been a 390 ktm?


I had to look up superduke mpg so when I win the lottery and buy one, I will know how often I will need to
stop for go juice.
47mpg average they claim, OK they lie about these things but it sounds better than my 80miles per tankfull.

[haynesjones66]

so anyway, went for a test ride and its a really fun bike to ride so was very positive! my wife was like, ok. sell the storm and go ahead. few weeks later my son says, "dad, we're getting married in august next year and all you need to pay for is the rehearsal dinner." (his girlfriend is american). so i asked how much and it's around £3500!! their wedding budget is $50,000 dollars apparently. bonkers. so there goes my KTM plan....
back to plan C i think. or might be D by now

[integerspin]

Bit of nosh vs a motorbike.

[sirch345]

Some you win, and some you don't

Chris.

[haynesjones66]

anyway, going back to the original plan of modifying the bike for my own specific ailments, i've been looking at various options such as raising the seat and so on. first thing, remove the rear subframe. normally no problem. but then you see the horror story in the wiring department. insulating tape everywhere!! it has a tinted rear light. fine. except the connectors have been butchered/not crimped properly/wrong crimp type. great..
so you begin to wonder if the other mods were done by the same person - wavy discs, braided hoses, blade front end/ lightened flywheel etc. i hope not. so everything has to be checked over as i've already found loose and missing bolts etc. not in the best of moods so far.

[MacV2]

anyway, going back to the original plan of modifying the bike for my own specific ailments, i've been looking at various options such as raising the seat and so on. first thing, remove the rear subframe. normally no problem. but then you see the horror story in the wiring department. insulating tape everywhere!! it has a tinted rear light. fine. except the connectors have been butchered/not crimped properly/wrong crimp type. great..
so you begin to wonder if the other mods were done by the same person - wavy discs, braided hoses, blade front end/ lightened flywheel etc. i hope not. so everything has to be checked over as i've already found loose and missing bolts etc. not in the best of moods so far.

It's not that difficult to fit a replacement loom. First you need to find one that hasn't been chopped about, normally it's the indis & rear lights that get abused most... I've bought a few off ebay, just have a good look at the pics, any non standard connectors, move on...

Assuming you can find one, take load of pics of the routing before you remove it. Bike needs to be all plastics off, tank & air box & the heat shield...Wires for the TPS run along the front frame cross member. Mainly it all passes along the left side. Labels will help but nearly all the connectors will only fit the socket they came out of, so it's almost impossible to connect anything up wrong...

[haynesjones66]

thanks. i'm thinking about another loom and i've taken pics and videos as i'm working on it. reason i'm thinking of raising the seat is the fact that the ktm seat is higher and further forward and therefore more comfortable. i put a big wedge of polystyrene on the standard seat and all of a sudden it's spot on. no need to drop the pegs etc. getting the seat height right is the next big headscratcher. still, i like a challenge.. oh, and thanks for the tap, mac. it arrived this morning

[AMCQ46]

I wanted to see if the storm was better on knees with an extra inch and a 1/2 on the seat, so I tried an Oxford Air seat whenI was up in Northumberland.

and the answer is yes, it made a big difference, but the air seat pumped up that hard is not the perfect solution as it is not a very stable base. when you move your weight it is like a waterbed and moves away from you and jacks up the other side, but clamping the tank with your legs brings back stability and I had no problem making rapid progress and even getting my knee down.... so I need too get a seat maker to make something more pernmenant, but in the mean time I will continue to use the air bed solution.

[AMCQ46]

you can see the airpad in this photo, obviously it sinks a bit when you sit on it, so probably a bit over an inch higher, but made a big difference, although there is now more wind in your face as I even further above the screen now with high bars and a high seat


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Flatline]

I tried a ktm990 smt a few years ago. I thought it was ok but decided it wasnt worth 5k, and not that much of a difference .
So I bought some high bars, which sorted the problem

Might get some footpeg lowering backets next

I did try grumpy's 790 and its a cracker