I'm not really pleased with the durability and back support of my buggy seat (Rockville, I believe).

Anyone aware of any kite stores that sell generic seats that can be installed on most buggys?

I'd also like to see some pics of people that have made their own. Anyone want to share?

Thanks.

Peter Lynn makes a pretty decent seat that can be attached to anything, the Comp ST seats will fit, but aren't that comfy, but they're good for really low slung buggies, The Comp XR+ seat is quite a bit deeper with a little bit of back to it. They just sit a little lower so you need a bit higher siderails. I used an XR+ seat on my homebuilt which was pretty low and only bottomed out on a couple bumps.

Libra seats are sweet, but I think you need pretty high side rails to get away with them. Could probably go with a Flexi seat as well, just never used one.

Its a piece of crap on mine but the design makes alot of sense i would upload a pic but i dont know how can u help? Its just 3 peices of p 3/4 inch plywood about 1 foot wide by 1.5 feet tall (you might want to go a little bigger as i am 15 and a toothpick) and it they are connected on the short side by 2 hinges and staple a pad onto the plywood and attach the top and bottom corners with a peice of rope so that it is at a comfortable angle for sitting (average seat angle) Hopfully that made sense if not I'll put up a pic of my buggy to show you. but the great thing is it folds has great back support and can be customized to fit any buggy.:cool2:

I just got a Rockville buggy and agree- the back support is poor at best. I am 6'6" so I am not helping the issue! It took a couple of tries but I used the long webbing made for the back axle to help with the back support. I had my 10 yr. old daughter sit in the buggy and then I went Martha Stewart crazy with the webbing!
It works pretty well. That is till I leaned back hard and heard the piece of wood in the support crack! I replaced it with thicker wood and now have decent support.

Hey Beachrights, off topic here but, did you ever have any problems with your front wheel coming loose?

Oh great!!! Thats something to look forward to!
I just got the buggy and am planning on taking it for its first [last?!} run tomorrow.

Funny you should ask though- When I was assembling it I couldn't figure how to tighten the front wheel enough to make it safe but not prevent the wheel from moving freely. I tried to find a medium but if you have had issues I might crank it down another 1/4 turn! Lock tite time? Let me know if you have had issues.

How about the seat buckles breaking? I just sat down for a cruise around my basement and heard 'Ping!' looked underneath and there was 1/2 a buckle laying on the ground! I am already planning on replacing ALL buckles with metal spring action clamps from a canvas company. I will let you know how it works out.

Once I got the seat hung right on my Flexi, I really like it!
It's good heavy durable fabric, and with the back rest/support correctly adjusted, it fits snug in the lumbar area where it should be!
A few folks I know have run theirs for several years now and no one has ever mentioned any repair from normal ( or two wheelin') use.
Sorry, no idea where you would order one from or if they would fit a different make of frame...

Thanks for the replies, guys....

npw... a pic would be great if not too much trouble.

Beachrights - Funny you should mention the buckles, I was going to ask you about that in my initial post.
Funny story - maiden run at El Mirage, just got the buggy two weeks before, all excited to give it a go. Winds blowin 20mph and I'm looking at miles of empty playa. Sit on the Rockville and feel the straps move - so I'm kinda nervous at this point, but I decide to dip the kite and off I go...decide to make a left after about 30ft and one of my foot pegs moves about 6 inches...guess I didn't tighten it hard enough...although I don't think superman could have gotten it much tighter. At this point, I try to make it back to my car. Then the wheel comes loose, didn't pop off but unrideable at this point. I walk the buggy back to my car and pull out the PL folding buggy. When I do get home, I sit in the buggy and pop a few buckles...My wife is laughing hysterically and keeps telling me you get what you pay for and something else that sounded vaguely like 'fat a#$".....so I put new buckles on, bought some new screws for the foot pegs and have tightened the wheel...I'm going to run down a couple of hills to test it out and then this weekend, another trip to El Mirage....Thinking about popping into the church beforehand for good measure. I'll let you know how it goes!

Lunchbox:
What did you use for the buckles?
Lets see.... front wheel falls off, A*s hits ground from buckles breaking, and foot peg does a 180. Sounds like I should have a good deal of confidence in this ride!

This certainly cooked my goose on one of these Rockville buggies. I don't mind it not being top drawer for a bargain price, but it should be way better than that or they shouldn't sell it. I'm 6'4 and 230 lbs so I'm gonna stress one of these things to start with. I don't need to spend $2-300 on something that I then spend hours and money fixing the things they didn't do right to start with. I think some extra money would be well spent to get away from the lack of thought during engineering and part choice.

Quote:

Originally posted by Pablo Peter Lynn makes a pretty decent seat that can be attached to anything, the Comp ST seats will fit, but aren't that comfy, but they're good for really low slung buggies, The Comp XR+ seat is quite a bit deeper with a little bit of back to it. They just sit a little lower so you need a bit higher siderails. I used an XR+ seat on my homebuilt which was pretty low and only bottomed out on a couple bumps. Libra seats are sweet, but I think you need pretty high side rails to get away with them. Could probably go with a Flexi seat as well, just never used one.

The Flexi seats have some lumbar support, too. The seat hangs from the outside of the side rails, where the PL hangs from the inside, giving the Flexi more room for a harness. I've got a 36" waist and when I wear a harness, it's a bit snug in the PL XR+. The flexi frame is 1" wider too, so combined with the way the seat hangs, there is a lot more room.

Beamerbob:
Don't run away from the kite buggy yet. It cost me $10 to get new buckles and 2 locknuts to solve any potential issues. The locknuts were more for piece of mind then anything. The seat buckles were hard to tighten from the start so I was planning on replacing them before one broke. Other than that- I see no quality issues. For the price it is still a bargain.

I would love to post a pic but idk how. could someone help me? :o

Don't use "quick reply"; use "Post Reply" button on lower right.

At the bottom of the reply box, click the browse button and naviigate on your machine or the photo source to the file.

The file should not be too big or it won't postt. If necessary, use a tool like Picassa (export function) to chop the photo down to something like 800x600

Hey BeamerBob - I definitely agree with you re: your comments. Looking back, I probably would buy a used Peter Lynn or something similar instead of the Rockville but I got tempted by the $199 price tag. Although I'm not pleased with the plastic buckles that they used, the adjustable foot pegs (should be welded in my opinion) and the front fork attachment to the wheel it appears the rest of the buggy is well made. Not ready to give up on it just yet...

Beachrights - The buckles that broke were the ones where both sides of the webbing was sewn directly into the seat. I just bought two of those plastic clips, the ones that snap together and then ran the webbing through the portion of the webbing that was attached to the seat and then continued running the webbing over the frame. Hopefully it will hold up.

...getting back to the original post...anyone care to share some pics of their custom seats?

Here it is (Without paint) and open

Folded up

Note the rear wheels are now much larger 10" instead of five and it looks alot better with paint.

This is me sitting in it talking on the phone btw

Very original NPW....did you built it yourself? Looks like it might be a bumpy ride with the small back tires...any plans to upgrade to standard buggy size tires....course that might throw your angle off...thanks for sharing the pics!

Yeah i did make it (i would make one before i buy one anyday) A: because its free and B: because i can customize it any way i want (I have quick releases and it folds into a back wearable thing so i can ride my bike to the park) And i would like to put some 21" wheels on the back (Those are five and my new ones are 10") here is the link for how it looks now

http://www.powerkiteforum.com/viewthread.php?action=attachme...

Now it has some 16" inch pneumatic tires in the back. Ride is alot smoother.

I'll put a pic up later:frog:

Amazing effort....if its ok with you I will add it to my home brew page

http://pic7.piczo.com/Popeyethewelder/?g=41859403&cr=7

Yeah thats fine! But let me get a new pic up first with the 16's on it and with me with the kite.

Here is the kite one

Here is one of my ATB if you want

Add me to the list of frustrated Rockville owners. My first attempt at taking it out I couldn't get the seat properly attached (and beach conditions were nasty to boot). So after posting on PKF and getting some helpful feedback, I too "went Martha Stewart" with the webbing and seemed to get the seat attached well enough.

So this weekend I finally took the bug out for its maiden voyage. I'm happy to say I was able to ride about 100 yards...first time in a buggy.

However, during the process, I had three failures of the same seat attachment (right side, middle attachment). First, the sewn webbing tore completely off of the seat at the sew line. I'm 190 lbs and I was stationary when it happened. So I then passed the loose webbing through the buckle and tied the two ends together at the railing. This was a bad idea because a few yards of travelling later the buckle snapped in two. So I then fed the webbing through the sewn loop the buckle used to be attached to. Yards later and the webbing loop also tore and ripped loose along the bottom of the seat.

Needless to say, the final failure was catastrophic and I walked the buggy back to the car.

I too have had problems with the foot pegs moving on me; the screw heads are too soft for tightening any further so I'll need to replace them. I've had the front wheel come off the forks (thankfully not while riding it). I think I've seen an issue with the wheel bearings popping out of the rim as well...possibly when subjected to a lateral force.

I echo the frustrations stated above. I didn't expect top drawer; I didn't expect a race car. I would have settled for a Geo Metro. What I got isn't worth the $250 I paid. Now I'm trying to decide if it's worth buying another seat, or trying to sell it as is.

I'm bummed.

It probably is plenty good to use as a canvas to create a good bulletproof buggy. I actually considered doing just that but decided to bide my time and wait for a used Flexi to come along or just get my hands dirty and make one myself. If I haven't found a used bargain flexi by summer, I'll probably go the custom route. I still wish Popeye lived next door. I could mow his yard for a year or more and have a showstopper. It would probably be fun for him just doing the cutting and welding with me doing all the polishing and spending money on materials. I still owe him a set of drawings I started on as it is. I need to make that a priority.

You may be able to pick up a cheap PL Comp ST seat from a shop, I think they're around the $40 range, could be off a hare. They fit nicely in a buggy with low side rails and are perfect for any home built applications. The XR+ seats also fit quite a few buggies but are closer to $80. If you've got the depth with your siderails then the Libra seat would be the way to go. Most of the buggies out there aren't deep enough to run one though. If you're building one yourself it's something to consider.

A backpack and some nylon webbing and some triglides worked well for me. I'll try to get some pics up later

When talking about shallow versus deep side rails, does anyone have some rough dimensions that I could compare the Rockville to? How high are the XR+ side rails off the ground compared to the PL CompST?

Thanks all!

They're almost exactly the same on the XR+ and the Comp ST, more a nicer seat, heavier downtube and all in all, a heavier buggy with the XR+. Dimensions are almost the same, but the ST weighs in around 25lbs, The XR+ is closer to 40lbs.

PL buggys seem pretty close to the flexi buggies, I think the Rockville ones should be pretty close to on par as well. Most of them have the seat slung pretty low, you sit on the seat and there's enough of a side to keep you from slipping out. On me that's just over 1/2 way up the side of my leg in a seated position. In the Super Truck, I've got the seat slung nice and low, siderails are about belly button height. I've just made up a few extra bits to drop it lower, should be about 2/3 the way up to my armpits by the time I'm done.