I hereby join the many others who have already testified to the effectiveness and quality of the Baldwin saddle. Many of those who have lauded the Baldwin saddle have also praised the exceptional customer service of the man responsible for the Baldwin saddle, Loren. On the latter point, I have an experience I'd like to share.
I ordered a Baldwin GT low cut in vinyl with deluxe rider and passenger heaters on 11 March, and the saddle was ready on 18 April. At the time, on his website it said the lead time was about 6 weeks (I just checked and it now says 12!).
Since I live only about 3 hours away Loren's shop in Baldwin City, Kansas, after I placed my order I asked Loren if it'd be OK if I rode down to his shop to trade my stock saddle for the GT. That'd save me about 50 clams each way in shipping, and be a great excuse to do my first overnighter on the Connie. He replied yes, and almost immediately refunded the shipping fee and the core deposit. I didn't ask for, nor expect this. I though we'd just settle somehow when I showed up to pick up my saddle. The refund was perfectly timed, as I was really wanting to buy a new windshield at the time but just couldn't justify dropping another 200 clams after paying for the saddle. The early refund allowed me to buy the shield too without further draining the savings account.
After Loren informed me that the saddle was ready, I threw a few overnight essentials in one of the bags and headed for Baldwin City via Kansas City (I needed a good barbeque fix). With the thought of what awaited at my destination, the stock seat felt even more uncomfortable than usual on the ride down.
So I arrive at Loren's location, and he takes me into his shop to show me the saddle. His shop is very professional: spacious, tidy and neat, well-lit and full of unfamilliar (to me) equipment. There were several saddles around in the different stations in various stages of production, as well as what appeared to me to be top-quality raw material. On one table, for example, was a beautiful brown cowhide that he said he was about to use for a Triumph Scrambler seat. He also seems to have a thing for Buells, since there were three of them in the shop. But we'll forgive him for that, especially since there was a black Connie in the garage.
Next we take the saddle to my bike, and before putting it on, he offered to wire it up for me. At first we couldn't find the accessory leads. My C14 is a 2012 and his is an earlier model. He fished around in the tail of my bike, where the leads on his bike were, but they didn't seem to be there on mine. I suggested we just wire it directly to the accessory fuse slot in the fuse box. Sparing all the details, when we couldn't get that to work, we incorrectly trouble shot the problem to the seat. We took the seat back into the shop and tested it, and it checked out fine. We hypothesised it must be something about the power we were getting from the fuse box. I did a quick search on this site from my phone, and learned that the accessory leads on a 2012 are indeed in the tail, but you have to move the ECU out of the way to get to them. To move the ECU out of the way, you first need to remove the plastic toolbox (4 allen bolts). Once the ECU is moved, you'll see a plastic boot with a bunch of wires in it; two of those wires are not connected to anything; they are accessory leads. The one with the exposed connector is negative; the one with the protected connector is positive. We plugged the seat into the accessory leads and the heater turned on.
Another thing to be aware of is the accessory circuit on the 2012 is only 5 amps. That's not enough to support both the rider and the passenger heaters. In Loren's seats, the two are completely independent, with their own sets of wiring and switches. In the ordeal I described above, we wired only the rider's heater to my accessory leads. To get the passenger heater powered up, I'll need to wire a relay directly to the battery, and tap the accessory circuit to switch the relay on and off.
All told, Loren cheerfully spent about 2.5 hours of his valuable time making sure I was set-up and happy (I apologize for the slight additional delay to those of you currently waiting on Baldwins.) Another nice touch was the free Balwin t-shirt he gave me.
Now, about the saddle itself. Part of my scheme in picking up the saddle in person was that being in Baldwin City put me within a few hours of the Ozarks, a place I've never been but have wanted to visit ever since I was a child reading Old Yeller. So I spent the rest of that day and all of the next day on my Baldwin riding some of the most roller-coaster like roads I have ever ridden through some stunningly beautiful country. (Aside: I've never seen happier cows that the ones I saw in those hills: Munching on grass, relaxing under shade trees reading motorcycle magazines, bathing in ponds). The saddle is just perfect. No more sitting on my 'nads, no more sliding forward, no more pain in my crotch and posterior. The problem is everything else hurts. This is not new, it's always been the case. It's just that before, my aching posterior overrode all the other discomforts. Now I really need to do something about the reach to the handlebars so that I can put all my weight on the Baldwin instead of 80% on the saddle and 20% on the handlebars, as is currently the case.
