Brooks B-72 Update

 The Brooks saddle restoration process has finally reached its end. I had one thing I wanted to address before I rode it since my last update on this project.

My waiting to ride this was based upon my fears that the skirts of the B-72, which were sticking nearly straight out when I started working on this saddle, would still be prone to flaring outward once I sat on the thing to ride with it. The softness of the leather was another reason for this fear.

Well, fear not! There is a remedy for this issue and it is called "tying", or more commonly as "lacing" a Brooks saddle. This is a process where one punches holes into the skirt of the saddle and then you simply lace a cord through these holes to draw in the skirts and prevent them from bowing outward.

It is a common practice with owners of Brooks saddles and I was able to find a lot of resources to learn from concerning this practice. I won't bother linking to any single source here as there is a lot of references to this practice and if you are reading this you can Google just as well as I can!

I was somewhat in luck here as I had purchased a leather punch to alter my belts with a few years ago. So, I had the perfect tool for making the holes, but I did not have any good laces to use. Cotton sneaker laces would work, but as one might expect, these will deteriorate over time and are not an ideal lace for a Brooks saddle. Not in my estimation, at any rate.

I don't get around like I used to without a car these days, so when my daughter needed new work shoes I begged to ride along as my son drove us over to the shoe store. (Yes, they still exists!) I found a pair of nice, beefy, round laces for hiking boots which are made to resist decay. I could have waxed them before I installed the cord, but I went ahead and put it in raw for the time being.

I had given thought to getting leather laces, but the shoe store did not have any, and I would have to wait to order those, so I chose to go with the round laces I had found there. Then it was time to go home and actually start punching holes.

The B-72 presented a bit of a challenge here as I had to consider how the lace would cross over from side to side underneath the saddle. I had to avoid the two saddle rails on each side and the big, traditional bolt/clam shell seat post clamp.

Once I had determined where underneath I could go with the lace, I then had to decide how many holes I needed to do the job well. After squeezing and poking for about ten minutes I had determined where I would want the lace to draw the skirts together to get the saddle to hold its shape. 

B-72 meets leather punch

 

The results.

I marked out the approximate places I wanted to punch out holes at and then I went for it. This was the "now or never" moment of commitment. I wasn't too worried as I have stated before - This saddle was junk when I got it. Any way to make it usable again was a "win", so screwing this up was an option I was ready to accept if and when it happens. Of course, I hope it does not come to this, but I am fine if it does, as I will have learned a lot about the process of restoring a Brooks leather saddle.

And now for the finished product.....

So, this saddle is kind of an odd feeling saddle. It is wider than almost anything else I've used in a while. It seems to support my weight just fine, and this is good as the adjuster nut is all the way to the loose side, so I can tension this up as needed. I just did a quickie ride, so I cannot really comment any further on the ride.

The seat post is in an unusual material, being made from aluminum, is very light weight, and fluted on the inside. I would love to keep it on here, but it seems to be a tad too short as I have the minimum insertion line still sticking out above the seat collar a good three millimeters or more. Not good! 

So, since this needs a headless seat post shaft and most seat posts of this sort I see are chrome steel, it may be a while before I come up with a solution which is serviceable for the Karate Monkey, at least. Now if I could only talk my machinist son into turning one down in aluminum for me......