Motocoverz Sheepskin Saddle Cover Anyone?

Last year, when I went to Morocco for a spell, I wanted to try out the idea of riding using a sheepskin saddle cover. As luck would have it, a neighbour had an old sheepskin he wanted a new home for, so I told him how I was going to use it and he gave it to me. I then cut it in half, added some straps to it and added it to my bike.

The whole thing worked perfectly. The sheepskin added warmth when it was cold, was cool when it was warm and made riding much nicer on these saddles, allowing me to ride for longer each day. The draw back was when it rained or heavy frost. Once wet, these take days to dry, once frozen, they are hard to manage. Indeed this one cracked over the ride and split. I took to storing it in a plastic bag during rain and overnight, it went into my tent!

To be fair, the failure of this sheepskin was a mix of age, lack of being cured for this kind of thing and then wrapping it around a saddle which adds all kinds of stresses to the material. Once back in the UK I binned the poor thing as it had become unusable. For me, it was a successful piece of kit, now I just needed to find a good replacement.

Enter 2024! I responded to a discussion on Facebook asking questions about using sheepskins and Matt from Motocoverz got in touch to ask if I was interested in a pilot test of his product for adventure bikes. He was looking for design feedback for adventure bike fitment and I was looking for a replacement sheepskin, so we chatted and now I have a full saddle sheepskin to try out. :-)

The first trip out on this is the end of March 2024, riding 8 days around the Great Western Trail with a mate. Its looking like a 1600 mile round trip. I'll write up some feedback once its complete. 

Some info about the Motocoverz sheepskin. Matt offers a choice of sheepskins, short hair and long hair, then a variety of colours, sizes, shapes etc. I chose long hair & white. White was just being vain, it matched the bike colour! ;-) Long hair was because it added warmth, air flow and a greater level of plushness for my bony backside.

Matt has traditionally focused on road bikes, which make sense as its a big market place. They are cut to shape, a soft suede like finish on the back and some elasticated straps are stitched into place to hold the cover around the saddle. 

With road bikes, the elastic option is fine as people sit on a road bike and don't move around too much. For adventure bikes, folk stand or sit, they get dirty, muddy, wet and fuelling can be an odd one, (ie not from a pump, but from plastic bottles and/or jerry cans). 

What does this have to do with sheepskins you ask?

Well, spillage of petrol onto elastic, (which is a petroleum based material), makes it warp and stretch quickly. Constantly sitting/standing moves the sheepskin around, which in turn stretches the elastic and shortens its life. Adding soft luggage creates extra stresses as it is designed to flex & move which in turn does the same to the sheepskin. When you add all of these factors together, you get a recipe for the elastic to stretch, this in turn leads to the seat cover being able to move around, maybe bunch up. This could lead to a distraction whilst riding. So after a few discussions, we've decided to try the elastic first and if it becomes a problem, Matt has offered to change the straps to static nylon webbing which attaches to the bike frame. This was how I fitted my sheepskin last year and after 7k miles, I know it works well. 

So proof will be in the pudding as they say, watch this space.