If you check out the spec sheets for custom bikes in about any mag, and you come upon the seat section, chances are you’ll find Le Pera listed as the manufacturer. Motorcycle seat = Le Pera, one of those synonymous things. There’s a reason their Silhouette, Bare Bones, Daytona, and countless other seats have over the years set the industry standard. In two words, style and quality. Of course, the pleasure-pain principle is also involved.
Now there are three places where the human anatomy interfaces with a motorcycle…hands on the grips, feet on the controls, butt on the seat. As to which area of body/bike intersection is most important, ask that question after about 400 miles nonstop in the saddle. To smooth out that connection, for more than thirty years people have been resting their posteriors on Le Pea bike seats, the family operated business still at their same location on Lankershim Blvd. in North Hollywood, CA.
We said family operated, and that tradition continued when in 1985, and just out of high school, Bob, Jr. began working side by side with his father, Bob, Sr. who launched Le Pera Enterprises in 1972.
Bob, Jr. was inspired to re-introduce the classic design elements after purchasing a pair of Schwinn Stingray bicycles, repops of the original 1970’s cruiser bikes. You might remember images from Big Daddy Roth and Mopar musclecar colors like Plum Crazy Purple. Well, metal flake is back big time from Le Pera. What’s cool is that you can have any of their existing seats given the metal flake treatment. At last count they have something close to 500 different seat options. Add to the mix a list of metal flake colors that make rainbows look pale. “We also offer a variety of stitching, threads, graphics, studs and inlays, as well as color matching or contrasting piping to go with the metal flake,” says Bob. Yes, you now can have a red metal flake seat to go along with your red metal flake paintjob or about any color you can imagine.
Seriously though, keeping with that Old School theme, Le Pera offers both double and solo seat configurations (and passenger pillions), including vintage sprung seats in both small and large sizes not to mention a choice of materials that includes cost effective vinyl, vinyl and leather combinations, upscale all leather, and a list of “exotics” like alligator, shark, ostrich, stingray and lizard. And if you’re not gelling like a felon, Le Pera can add some of their special gel inserts to smooth out the long hours in the saddle, a case of style meeting ergonomics with the rider benefiting from both.
In retrospect, if you happened to check out a Le Pera catalog circa 1996, you might notice some metal flake seats offered therein, the brainstorm of Bob, Jr. almost ten years ago.
“I even found some NOS metal flake material from the 1970s and made up the seats. We didn’t make that many, and I think there’s a few still around here someplace,” says Bob, Jr. You could say he was ahead of his time, the public realization that metal flake was cool again not hitting its stride until just recently when he introduced them again. The time was right and at the recent industry trade show in Cincinnati, metal flake was going like gang busters, the Le Pera seats now squarely in the spotlight. This time the Force was with them and Metal Flake has taken off. Call it retro-vintage, gnarly nostalgia, Old School Remix or just plain styling, the Le Pera metal flake designs offers a whole new look whether you’re planning a complete custom buildup or if you just want to give your ride a pedal to the metal(flake) makeover.
While Le Pera is focused primarily on saddling up Harley-Davidsons (Deuce, Softail, Dyna, FXR, Sportster, FLH, Roadking, rigid), they are offering a metric bike option. Send in your seat pan and they’ll make you up a custom saddle based on any of their many designs, including the metal flake treatment. Turn around for a new seat is about three weeks.
