Great news! I received word from the factory this weekend that manufacturing was completed on Saturday! The new bike seats, backrests, and ebike pegs are going through final inspection at the factory now, and if everything looks good, they'll be in a shipping container on a boat heading towards California by the end of this month.

This latest shipment contains more bike seats, backrests, and the newly updated ebike pegs. This new design for the ebike pegs makes it easier than ever to tighten them down onto the rear axle of your ebike.

Tentative arrival of the shipment in LA Harbor is scheduled for August 15. From there it'll take a couple days to clear customs and get trucked to our new distribution partner's facility in Phoenix AZ. As soon as it arrives in Phoenix all back-orders will be shipped out immediately. I'll be traveling down from San Francisco to greet the shipment personally and make sure all back-orders are shipped asap. If everything goes according to plan, back-ordered bike seats should arrive by or before the end of August!

Stay tuned for more updates as I receive them from the factory and our shipping partner.

We ran out of bike seats back in April and more are being made as we speak. We're also having more backrests made, as well as mass-producing the ebike pegs for the first time. Prior to this, all of the ebike pegs have been regular pegs, customized by a local machine shop.

The first set of backrests were made by a different factory from the one that makes the bike seats. However, for this order, the bike seat factory decided they wanted to make the backrests as well. So they needed to put together prototype samples of the backrest as well as the ebike pegs. These samples just arrived today, and everything looks great.

Now that we've had a chance to review the samples in person and they meet the spec requirements, the factory can move forward with mass production of both the backrests and the ebike pegs.

For most of us, videos are easier to understand than printed manuals with illustrations, and I was finally able to put together a quick video tutorial on how to install and remove the new backrest for Companion Bike Seat. You can watch it here on thebikeseat.com or on YouTube. Subscribe to our YouTube channel to stay updated on all our new products and videos!

I spot-checked the first shipment of backrests as I prepped all of the pre-orders for shipment over the last couple of days, and everything looked great with this first back of backrests, no issues or defects at all with the manufacturing process. It ultimately took me 3 full days of packing and shipping to get all of the hundred or so pre-orders out, but I got it done, with the last shipment dropped off at the post office on Saturday afternoon. 

Once that was all taken care of, I finally had a chance to take one of the new backrests out for a photo shoot out on the Embarcadero this afternoon. It was a gorgeous San Francisco Sunday afternoon (gotta love the Indian summers here in the city) with all sorts of folks out walking, running, bicycling, and roller-blading along the waterfront.

The backrest lives up to expectations ... mine anyways. It's easy to install and remove, comfortable yet durable backrest cushion, and more than enough support to lean back against while riding (we do like to over-engineer things here at Companion Bike Seat, just in case). Can't wait to hear what the world thinks about these backrests for Companion Bike Seat once the pre-orders start arriving this week!

The first shipment of backrests for the bike seat arrived safely today, and pre-orders of the backrests will start shipping out first thing tomorrow.

As soon as the shipment arrived this morning, I broke down the pallets and filled up my car with the hundred or so backrests that have been pre-ordered so far. I put the rest of the backrests into storage, then drove my car full of backrests home to prep them for shipping.

Once the shipment was received and the backrests were all safely in storage or at home, I had to run back to the office for a couple afternoon meetings. I of course brought a couple of them with me to the office to show off, and made sure I had some time to pose for some photos outside as well.

One of my co-workers (on the right above) had supported us during the Indiegogo campaign and purchased a bike seat and backrest, so I was able to deliver his backrest to him in person. We tested it out on the bike seat, confirming everything was delivered as expected with the shipment of backrests. That's him on the right giving the thumbs up sign.

I'll dig through the backrests to make sure we don't have any quality issues tomorrow and if looks good, all pre-orders domestic and international will boxed up and shipped out by this weekend!

The first shipment of backrests for Companion Bike Seat arrived safely at the Port of Oakland and was cleared through customs yesterday! I'll receive them early next week, and pre-orders will ship out as soon as I'm able to break down the pallets and box up all the orders. There's almost a hundred of them, so it may take me a day or two to get them all ready, but I'll be 100% focused on backrests until they're all shipped out.

Based on this, we're still on schedule to ship out orders by the end of next week, which means the backrests should arrive just in time to take out trick-or-treating over the Halloween weekend!

It's official, the first manufacturing run of bike seat backrests is complete, and they shipped out from the factory this afternoon! This is a picture of one of the many pallets of backrests at the factory just outside of Shenzhen, just before they were loaded onto trucks to take to the port. It'll take another 3 to 4 weeks to get here to SF, but we're still on track to have the first backrests ship out to folks before the end of October. I'll provide an arrival date as soon as I receive one from our shipper. 

We ran into a couple snags with the backrest manufacturing in early August that resulted in a delay of more than a month to resolve. Apologies for the delay with the backrests, but these things do happen with the first mfg run of a new product, as we've learned from the bike seat already. We've been working extra close with the factory over the last month to make the necessary changes, and the backrests are now expected to be finished by the end of next week, Sep 18!

From the factory, it will take three to four weeks for freight shipping to arrive here in San Francisco. Pre-orders will ship out as soon as the shipment arrives, and are expected to be sent out during the week starting Oct 19. As long as everything goes according to schedule now, backrest orders will be received before the end of October, just in time for Halloween and trick-or-treating.

I heard back from the factory this week on manufacturing progress for the backrests, and we now have a delivery date for completion! They'll be finished and ready to ship on August 10th. From there, it will take another three to four weeks for freight shipping across the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco. Once I receive them, I'll prep all of the pre-orders and will ship them out immediately after!

If all goes according to plan, the backrests will be shipping out right around Labor Day, just in time for back-to-school!

I also have some great news about the pannier hooks. Now that the backrests are almost complete, I've started working with the factory on prototyping the new pannier hooks for the bike seat! Initial prototyping will take about 7 to 10 days, and I'll share pictures of the progress made as soon as I have them back from the factory.

More updates to come soon!