Taking Off the Seat 
(2/2/2005)
Why would I need to take off the seat on a brand new bike?  Well, simple.  It needs to sit in the garage for a couple months before I actually ride it, and the battery is under the seat, and I need to get it out and hooked it up to an automatic trickle charger so that it doesn't get drained.

Ok, well, how does the seat come off.  On my BMW you stick the ignition key in a lock on the left side, just under the seat, turn, and the seat unlatches.  It comes off in two parts, first the front half and then the back (passanger) half.  Couldn't be simpler.

So, I'm looking for the key hole under the seat of the CBR...  hmmmmmm... Oh! Here it is under the passanger seat.  Put the key in... turn it... POP! ... the passanger seat unlatches.   Great... what about the front seat? I try to push, pull, lift, twist.  What the heck!  Under the passanger seat there is an owners manual, so I flip through it and what do I find regarding getting the front seat off?  There are two screws, one under each of the rear outside corners of the padding, which need to be unscrewed.  Excuse me! 

They're telling me that on this high tech, state of the art, electronic steering damper, rear shock contained in the swingarm, rip your arms out of your sockets, sport bike, they couldn't think of better way to hold the seat down, than two screws? And not just two screws, but two screws that you can't even see, or get to, unless you bend up the seat cushion corners.  So, I have to hold the corner up with one hand while I'm trying to get the screw undone with an allen wrench in the other hand..

Am I missing something here? Guess the BMW spoiled me... Not only do the BMW seats come right off, but under the seat there is a much better tool kit than what comes with the CBR; inlcuding a complete puncture repair kit containing plugs, an insertion tool, and CO2 cartridges.  The BMW kit also fits right in a specially made pocket under the seat. With the CBR kit... first of all, good luck getting all the stuff back in the little vinyl sack once you get it dumped out, and then good luck getting the little sack back in the little oddly shaped pocket in the tail section.  Ok, well, it's a high tech sport bike, right?  Not much you could do on it with any kit that fits under any seat... right?  Right... I'll just keep telling myself that.

Well, anyway, I did get the battery out.  But as I was looking at the space that it came out of, I'm thinking, there's not much room around there for anything.  This thing is packed tighter than a can of sardines.  Why would I want to put anything in there, you ask?  Well, my plan was to attach an automatic trickle charger somewhere next to the battery.  I did that on the BMW.  There's a 120V three prong plug that hangs out just under my right side cover.  I plug it in with an extension chord and the battery is kept fully charged.  Obviously I'm going to need a different approach with the CBR.  Not quite sure what I'll do, but I'll have to figure it out before I put the battery back in it this spring.