How to Customize Seats
- 1). Cut out an 8-inch by 10-inch piece of tissue paper. Place the tissue paper on top of your bike saddle and trace the shape using a marker. It is easier to round the curve of the bike saddle with a marker. Don’t worry about precision. A rough pattern of the bike saddle is all you need.
- 2). Remove the tissue paper from the bike saddle and lay it flat on a work table. Retrace the lines of the pattern making them smoother, if necessary. Draw a ½-inch seam along the outside of the pattern. Fold the pattern in half, so it is symmetrical.
- 3). Cut out the pattern using a pair of scissors. Cut along the outside seam line.
- 4). Cut out an 8-inch by 10-inch piece of fabric. Polyester works well for bike seats and repels moisture such as sweat. Lay the fabric on your work table. Place the tissue paper over the fabric. Pin the fabric and tissue paper together using straight pins. Place a straight pin at the top, bottom and at each side of the fabric; imagine the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o’clock positions on a clock.
- 5). Using the tissue paper as a guide, cut the fabric down to the size and shape of the tissue paper.
- 6). Flip the fabric, if necessary, so it is wrong-side up. Cut 1/2–inch slits into the curve of the fabric, a set of three at each side of the fabric.
- 7). Pin a ¾-inch hem along the rim of the fabric. Place the pins at the top, bottom and at each side of the bike saddle and then add more to fill in the gaps. Add as many straight pins as necessary to completely pin down the other sections.
- 8). Sew along a hem along the edge of the fabric using a sewing machine. You will have ¾-inch channel along the perimeter of the fabric when the hem is complete. This is where you will insert the drawstring.
- 9). Lay out a shoestring, lanyard or strip of elastic, so it is flat. Fasten a safety pin at the tip of the drawstring and use it to help you thread the drawstring through the channel. A safety pin will be easier to push through the channel than the bare tip of a drawstring. You should have enough of an opening to do this, but, if you do not, use a seam removal tool, which will allow you to remove a few seam lines to create an opening.
- 10
Pull the bike seat over the bike saddle until it is completely in place. Start at the nose of the saddle and then move backwards to the rounded edge of the seat. Hold the bike seat to the saddle as you go. Readjust the padding as necessary. - 11
Pull the drawstring to tighten the bike cover over the seat. Use a drawstring stopper or holder to secure it in place.
