Great visual. I hope you post the new one when it's done- including the seat itself.
I'm not far from that when i straddle the bike evenly buy you can see from my pic on the diva photo page I get more down when only using one side. I just got the title transferred today and the new helmet showed up just before I had to return to work today so I'm just starting to ride it. I have to check into getting mine done.

Great looking Boots!!

What model Icon are they ?

Are they as comfortable as they look ?

Good luck with the seat. I am sure they pros will improve it a lot.

Scoot safely,

_________________
New Rider in 2010
Grand Vista 250

Hi MaryK: The Icon boots are the model "Sacred." They come up near the knee and have buckles on the side. They are BEAUTIFUL! They also have some steel and are armored for protection. They retail for $150 and I got them on a clearance for $99! Problem is that even with my seat lowered, they still don't have a thick enough sole for me to reach properly.

I will post the results of my lowered seat. Word of caution for anyone with a Honda Elite 110 who wants to lower the seat- The amount they are actually able to shave may not be enough for most of us smaller gals! I am mostly disappointed with the results.

Love the boots!
Wow- you already got your seat done and back?
Can't wait to see.

Here is a synopsis of how all of my scooter problems have been handled on my Honda Elite 110:

1. Too much trouble getting the scooter on and off center stand because of my diminutive size: Ordered a side stand from The Scooter Shop (online) which Honda set up for on the scooter but did not include with the Elite's sold in the US. Tremendous difference! Cost: $59.95 No tax, no shipping!

2. BUMPY bumpy ride: I am still riding with the additional 24 lbs. of weights in the under seat storage area. I tried taking them out and riding around without them, but WHOAH!!! It made me realize what a huge difference the additional weight really makes. Downside is that the weights take up half of my storage area.

3. Seat too high: So I opted for having the seat professionally shaved down and a gel pad put in. I have been told that they took off "a lot" and that they couldn't take off any more. "A lot" is a relative term. On the Elite 110, the seat appears as though it has 5 or 6 inches of foam, but that's apparently not the case. I believe that the reason it looks so high (and is so high) is because of the shape of the seat pan. The storage's claim to fame is that it can fit one FF helmet under the seat (and possibly a second one), definitely under the rider's area. To accommodate for this, the seat pan is rounded up, kind of like a hill. The top of the "hill" is where the rider sits. So, all that I thought was foam is actually an illusion. The foam that exists is on top of this "hill" and enough foam is added to make the seat level and comfortable.

After getting the seat back and finding that with my thinner-soled Icon boots, there appeared to be NO difference at all in how I could reach the ground, I was ready to cry. This was a $267 (w/tax) job that I expected to be miraculous. Somehow with my original thick-soled boots, I can now get the balls of my feet down. My husband and I thought of one other option:

We may cut out the area of the "hill" part of the pan and have something fabricated to make it more level. That would eliminate the ability to put a FF helmet (or any helmet) under the seat, but would allow me to probably flat-foot the scooter. It would undoubtedly give me another 3" so. The are two small posts that allow the rider to lock in a FF helmet outside of the seat, still keeping it safe and secure.

I'm sorry this is so long, but I'm really trying to help out others!! I probably should have bought a different scooter, but I'm not your "average bear" and would have had to do mods of some kind regardless of what I bought!

I will post pictures of the seat before/after as soon as I can.

Yep, you're gonna have to modify the seat pan. As I don't have access to a Honda Elite, I don't know what kind of material the seat pan is made of, but if it's made of stamped sheet-steel, modifying it is no big deal. You can even have a new pan made from scratch that fits the same way on the scooter, but just has less of a "hump" to it. If your ol' man is good with a hammer & wrenches, he can probably knock the project out in a few hours. If not, then any good auto-body shop can do it.

If it's like the plastic seat pan on my Yamaha Vino, then that's a totally different pain-in-the-butt. Plastic can't be hammered & bent or cut & welded like steel. You just might be S.O.L.

That seat looked so fat - i had no idea about the seat pan hump.. thought they could really get it down for you.
Did they tell you up front how much they would (or wouldn't) be able to take off?
What did they claim was the total reduction after the work?

I'm no mechanic or upholsterer.. but even if the seat pan is plastic and you cut the hump out.. you'd think that one could shape
a patch out of metal and fasten it over the hole. Not sure how the seat above would react but you'd think it would lower it or at least you'd sink into it further.

Foamy: You're right; the seat pan is plastic as on the Vino! It's okay and I'll explain later.

Llazyiest: When I first visited the auto upholstery shop, the upholsterer did tell me that he could shave off about 3 1/2" and then carve out for the gel pad, but that was before he opened it up and probably saw that hump staring him in the face...LOL. I never did ask how much they actually shaved down because the guy told me, "We took off as much as we could. We can't take off any more."

I have gone back to my "Frankenstein" boots. I tried my husband's Elite with them on, then went back on mine. He took pictures of both. Contrary to what I thought, my seat is definitely lower than his. I put 30 miles on my scooter today and had a MUCH better footing than before, especially if I moved forward an inch or two to stop where now the seat is really narrow. I don't know why I was having so much trouble with the Icon boots (which I was forced to return).

Seat before and after: Seat after is a bit lumpier on the sides now but it doesn't bother me. Ground reach before and after to follow.

Ground reach before and after: Guess I will forever be stuck with my Frankenstein boots!!

Looks like they did a nice job.. rounded the sides down a little to so made it easier to reach.
The boots look nice too- not what I envisioned from the frankenstein name.. was thinking platform Ha.
I rode mine to work and back all week- have gotten more comfortable with the reach.
I'm shifting my weight slightly as I come to a stop to put the one foot down on the left.
I can get at least as much as in your 2nd pic of foot down. If I straddled it with both feet down I'd look like your
pre-shaving pic. (i probably slide a little forward too.) I'm always watching out for situations so I don't have to stop
and try to get a foot down on a downhill side.
Nice looking bikes btw. Looks like Honda borrowed a bit from Piaggio.

I think the shape of the "new" seat looks much better that what the factory originally made. Ya' gotta wonder why Honda made the seat so high in the first place? It's not like they're selling tons of scooters to NBA players...

Also, your "Frankenstein" boots look quite fashionable! I imagined you wearing something like the boots that the members of the band "Kiss" wore on stage back in the '70's, with 4 inch-thick soles, carved to resemble skulls or dragons... Yikes!

If you wear your riding boots for doing everyday activities like going to the store, you'll get used to them more quickly.

llazyiest: Thanks for the compliments! I call my boots "Frankenstein" boots since they look a bit hideous and clunky to me...not feminine at all. My feet look VERY large in them! I agree with you about the look of the Elite. From what I've seen of Piaggio, it does look like Honda borrowed the style.

foamynozzle: I think Honda made the seat so high in order to accommodate for a FF helmet under the seat. The seat pan has a large hump in it (where the top of the helmet would sit beneath it), which pushes it upwards considerably- thereby making it taller.

Well I have no reason to complain any more. At least with the thicker-soled boots, the lower seat, the side stand and the additional weight under the seat, I finally have myself a "custom" scooter that works for me. We have at last been bonding!

I've put about 260 miles on my bike since having it nearly a month now (there'd be more but it rains a lot here)
and can report that in that time the seat has compressed somewhat- enough that I can now get more of my
foot down when stopping (similar to skutamama's after photo - last one she posted.)
I also looked more closely at the seat and find that there is something hard inside
the front of the seat limiting the amount that could be reduced.
(probably the structure that allows the seat to open forward.)
At this point I doubt I'll be making any changes to the seat.
Total mileage is 460 so perhaps the previous owner didn't weigh much (or it just takes that long to compress).
It seems to have occurred over the last 2 weeks.

qhsgdjh: The original post is almost 2 months old, and someone else had the same idea back in May, but thank you for your input. I rode that way for a while and then decided that I would get used to the bumps because I needed my storage space. All of my issues have fortunately been ironed out with the scooter. As of right now, I have about 375 miles on her (since purchasing new at the end of April), and I hope to add many many more!

Update: New boots I just bought that have a sole thick enough to reach the ground but are not ugly and embarrassing to me like my "Frankenstein" boots were that I showed earlier in this thread. I'm very happy with them! (Milwaukee "Delusion" purchased from Amazon.com primarily with gift cards)

Nice boots too but I don't think the "frankies" were ugly- looked like a lot of hiking boots now.