Does anyone else out there have this type problem ?
My Breakout still has the stock seat which initially I didn't think was uncomfortable. Bought the bike in late July 2017. The big toe partially numb problem started about 1-2 months (in Sept) after buying this bike. I put 1000 miles/month on it the first 3 months. I also have a 2006 VROD Screamin Eagle II with a Sundowner seat and have never had any problems at all in the past 8 yrs I've owned it (I had put 5K miles/year on it before my Breakout came along). The numbness continued thru the winter but I was still riding on those warmer days....maybe 250 miles/month. Then in late May this year I started having what feels like a Charley Horse in both my hamstring and my calf. The muscles feel really tight, Hurts the most when when walking. Hurts less when in the easy chair and actually wasn't too bad when I went on short rides recently. The pain alternates between the calf and hamstring and many times they are both hurting at the same time. The first week after it started the pain level was up around a 7 or 8 (scale of 1-10). A couple months after the toe numbness (last Sept) I went to a neurologist. He did 3 MRI's and what's called an EMG test. He found nothing wrong. That's when I asked myself what has changed since this problem started ? The answer was that I bought this new bike and was riding the heck out of it. I presented this idea to the doctor and he said yes a stiff seat could cause something called "compression neuropathy". This is when you exert force on a specific part of your body for an extended period of time and there happens to be a nerve at that specific area. So compressing the nerve. This without a doubt can cause numbness on the extremities as I've had this before many years ago where my fingers all go numb (when I woke up in the AM for a couple weeks) from resting the back side of my forearm on edge of a wooden desk while using a computer mouse for several hours a day X a week or 2. Pretty sure it'll cause pain too but I will be confirming this when I see him again which may be soon. It's been since May 25th. The doc started me on a muscle relaxer (flexeril) on 6/6. After about 3 days this relieved the pain some but not completely.....maybe 50% on a good day.

In addition to getting some more medical tests I'm considering buying either some sort of gel filled seat cover and/or a new Sundowner seat. I may try the seat cover on my stock seat first and see what happens. Then buy the new seat if that doesn't work. This is purely a guess that the seat is the source of the problem. Meaning I am 60 and a year ago I was diagnosed with a vascular condition called GCA (aka Vasculitis). This causes restriction of blood (oxygen) flow to the muscles which equates to moderate or severe pain. But my blood tests show normal (been on prednisone steroid for a year) and my rheumatologist does not believe it's a vascular problem. Also there's one other neurological condition that can cause this ie. a spinal disk degradation problem (aka arthritis) causing a pinched nerve at my L4 & L5 vertibrae. I've had some minor degradation there that was noticed via an xray 4 yrs ago but not had any problems since then....although I've been very careful not to cause any problems there. So it's a whole lot more tricky getting to the bottom of my problem than it would be for most people since it can be a vascular problem or a couple different nervous system problems.

If anyone has experienced any type of similar discomfort with a motorcycle seat I'd love to hear their story (ideally before I lay out a bunch of cash for new seat and seat cover).

Thanks

 

Don't overcomplicate your issue, the standard seat I find quite comfortable too. Me personally I would move the bars either slightly forward or rearwards (dependent on personal preference) slightly before laying out on a new seat just to see if you can alleviate any pressure being applied.