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Touratech Introduces Dakar-Spec DriRide Breathable Seats

Touratech introduces the DriRide seat line, a new addition to the consumer product range. DriRide is a technology Touratech invented and used mostly for Dakar competition bikes, and it offers a new, superior level of long-range comfort thanks to a breathable design.
Touratech DriRide seat on a KTM bike 16 photos
Photo: Touratech
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DriRide seats are made with three distinct layers, each adding its own functionality to the overall result. Touratech uses the basic seat pans for the compatible bikes, and this makes the DriRide seats a direct replacement, with no modifications needed, for easy, effortless replacement. The seat pans have been drilled in key areas to provide better ventilation in the lower layer of the Ergo-Response foam.

Technology to the max

The Ergo-Response is a “long-distance” foam, as Touratech calls it. The open-cell structure allows air to flow through it, but the special design keeps the rider up, offering an excellent support and preventing bottoming-out, never allowing the weight of the rider to compress the layer completely. This ensures that the coccyx is free from stress, with the weight evenly distributed across the seat surface.

Above the Ergo-Response foam, Touratech has endowed their seats with a high-tech Vapor-Flow mesh layer. As you can see in the video after the jump, the Vapor-Flow layer has a dynamic structure which resembles that of auto-inflating mattresses. As the rider moves in the saddle, this loose mesh fabric creates a free space between the foam and the cover, allowing air and moisture to circulate. Moisture is eliminated through a “pumping” effect through the side panels of the seat.

Now, with all the breathability, you might ask yourselves how does the new DriRide behave in the rain. Won’t it get soaking wet? Well, it won’t, because Touratech has brought more high-tech materials to the adventure, long-distance game.

The seats are covered in Rain-Block fabric, a special mesh material which is completely waterproof and which forces water to bead up and flow from it instead of being absorbed. However, water vapors can pass through it, not unlike in the case of other climatic membranes, such as Hypora, Drygate or Gore-Tex.

The result

Together, these three features solve one of the rather pesky problems long-range riders and those who ride in warm weather have to deal with: moisture accumulating between the rider’s posterior and the seat of the bike.

While high-tech riding gear allows moisture to escape from the rider’s body, one of the breathability conditions is that it must have a place to go. As the rider sits on a traditional bike seat, the airflow is blocked and the moisture retained, regardless of how breathable the trousers are. With the DriRide seats, this is no longer an issue, as the water vapors can now flow through the very seat and be eliminated into the atmosphere even as the rides sits for a long time.

Getting a Touratech DriRide seat no longer requires to trade in your bike’s stock one, so you can have both now. Prices start at $560 (€435), and the seats can be ordered in a high version, as well. The Touratech DriRide seats will fit the following bikes (so far):

- BMW R1200GS/ADV Water-Cooled
- BMW R1200GS/ADV Oil-Cooled
- BMW F800GS
- BMW F700GS
- BMW F650GS-Twin
- BMW 1150GS
- BMW 1100GS
- KTM 1190 ADV/R
- KTM 690E
- Triumph Tiger Explorer 1200
- Triumph Tiger 800/XC
- Triumph Trophy
- Ducati Multistrada 1200
- Suzuki V-Strom DL650 2012-on
- Kawasaki Versys 650
- Yamaha Super XT1200Z Super Tenere
- Yamaha FJR1300.

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