PITY THE POOR POSTERIOR, ESPECIALLY if it’s plonked down on a stylish but skinny motorcycle seat, as Mr. Rditor Edwards’ ass was asked to do in riding the magazine’s Project 100 Harley-Davidson th 2600 miles from California to Milwaukee last summer.just before departure, Edwards was handed a pre-production version of the Comfort-Max Gel Pad, a triangular cushion of 3/4-inch-thick Viscoelastic medical-quality gel (think boob-job, only not liquid). “Here, you might want to try this,” the donor said, noting that the Project 100’s fender-hugging slab didn’t exactly look cross-country comfy.

Even before the Arizona border, Edwards was sold on the Comfort-Max. It didn’t turn the “Centennial Super Glide” into an Electra-Glide, granted, but made the 10-hour days in the saddle much more bearable. back home, he contacted parent company AMS to see about getting a production version. the pads come in three sizes-standard (12.5 inches at its widest), large (14 in.) and Jumbo (15.5 in.)-all with a grippy bottom; there’s also an 11-inch-wide rear-seat pad. He ordered the standard, but ponied up an extra $20 for the black sheepskin cover. This adds another 1/4-inch to seat height-for a 1-inch total increase-but is much more liveable in hot weather than the standard vinyl cover. An adjuctable nylon strap velcroes to the bottom of the pad to keep it in place–it comes with metal clips that are supposed to fit under the seat pan, but on the Project 100 we did away with the clips and simply looped the strap around the top shock mounts.

Six months after his Milwaukee ride, Edwards, refuses to give up either Project 100 or his Gel Pad. We’d call that the best kind of butt-kissing.