Jazz up your bike seat

As you may recall, my bike is called The Tank and I love it, because it gets me to work and back every day throughout the year and we get to do lots of fun cycles out on weekends and holidays in the meantime. However, riding it pretty much every day since October 2012 means that it’s not quite in the pristine condition it originally was.

Of late, the ‘leather effect’ saddle has started cracking. I would guess this is due to a combination of weather and arse-friction. This cracking means that I am now wearing through the crotchal-region of my trousers even faster than I was in the first place. Something had to be done! Plus it was soaking up water in the rain for the first time.

Cracky cracky. It’s worse on the other side actually.

The Tank needs a shower cap and so of course, I had to oblige. I popped along to the fabric stall next to the market and picked up half a metre of tablecloth waterproofy fabric (which will actually make about three or for cycle seat covers in actuality). This was significantly cheaper than the seat covers I had seen in the shop.

Then I drew a template around the top of the seat and added a seam allowance, measured the length of the outline and cut a large rectangle with the same width. I folded over the bottom length of the rectangle to form a pocket, threaded through so elastic and secured it and then made the rectangle into a circle which I then attached (right sides together) to the seat outline.

Turn it inside out and hey presto! I’d designed and sewn meself a cycle shower cap which will protect my trousers from rough edges in under 45 minutes! I’m pretty pleased because my saddle is a pretty weird shape, and that’s just the bike.

Winning at everything! Well, we’ll see how it goes on in the field tomorrow morning!