Need an alligator seat for that chopper?

LACONIA — Known as "The Seat Doctor", Mike Miller has restored and replaced motorcycle seats for the past 25 years, using the hides of a handful of exotic animals.

Miller, who works out of Newark, Delaware and Melbourne, Florida when he is not on the road, said his family was among the first to settle in the Sunshire State, when it was swampy wilderness. His grandfather began hunting alligators and selling hides around 1900 and his father owns and operates a tannery.

Miller said that he began with riding saddles and leather products, but soon specialized in motorcycle seats. He offers seats covered with the hides of alligator, crocodile, ostrich elephant, shark and stingray, stressing that all his materials are acquired in compliance with the "Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora," known for short at "CITES."

The alligator comes from Florida, crocodile from Columbia, elephant and ostrich from South Africa and shark and stingray from the Gulf of Mexico. He said he uses both the belly and back of alligators and crocodiles, along with the back, belly, ears and trunk of elephants. Prices for the exotic seats begin at $1,000. Apart from the exotics, Miller also fashions seats from medical gel, molded and fitted to the shape, size and weight of individual motorcyclists. When working at rallies, Miller finishes a seat in two or three hours and returns seats from his workshop within 48 hours.

"I get to all the major rallies — Daytona, Sturgis, Johnstown — all of them," Miller said, adding that the 91st running of Laconia Motorcycle Week is his 14th rally, most of which he has spent at the same spot at the top of the hill behind the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound. "This is one of my favorite places," he said.

CAPTION: Mike Miller, who has fashioned motorcycle seats from the hides of exotic animals at the lat 14 rallies, stands alongside a rack of alligator skins at his stand at the Weirs Beach Lobster Pound. (Laconia Daily Sun photo/Michael Kitch)