I have had the same problem three years ago - this original "replicated" Policia Solo seat from Italy w/ the seat pan made of plastics was dissatisfying, not stiff enough. The old one w/ the steel pan was stronger but ditto not rigid enough.
After a long research (also on Harley related sites ; - ) I found a real stiff solo seat on a Ural related site: http://www.russenteile.de/shop/
Sellers description:
"Supersaddle, designed in Germany especially for Dnepr bikes zinc- and powdercoated, strong metal seat with waterproof seatcover, made of strong, waterproof motorcycleseat vinyl (Spare covers available)! This seat is larger and a lot more comfortable than the original russian rubber(pain)saddle. Tested by more than threehundred ironbutt's of the german and american russianbike-community!!"
The Seller also ships to USA and sells on ebay USA.
This is a real "buttometer" seat - stiff and rigid.
The background: if you're driving a rig, it is very important to "feel" what's going on.
If you hit the road on a motorcycle with a sidecar a little fast, there is one important point: In left turns the rear tire starts to slip first and if you keep pushing, the rear tire comes up in the air. Then the sidecar turns over its own wheel and tries to bore the nose into the ground...
To prevent this, it is really important that you "feel" that point in your butt ; - )
To mount this saddle it needs a double U-shaped bracket to be welded and then mounted on the frame (there was a 8 mm inner diameter hole in the frame, behind the tank, which I used for mounting) and the springs from an "original" solo seat.
Or the nice looking hairpin springs from the friendly Harley supplier.
One more benefit is, that you have a length adjustment in a wide range (up to 60 mm, in 4 positions).
I'm very satisfied with this solution and rode even longer trips without any problems. i.e. our last holidays 2000 km in three weeks. Well, we are no "ironbutts" and prefer smaller roads and try to avoid the "Autobahn", therefore our daily trips are around 200/ 300km only.
A bit of a long explanation - but I hope this helps.
Ciao, Uwe
