Cycling UK Forum

The leather can try to revert back to the shape it was molded at the factory, if not too old and not ridden for a while. Also, if you were riding it constantly for a month, make sure it's not too sagging when sat on and in need of tensioning.

I unfortunately bought one of those. I thought it would just react to skin touch like a phone screen, but it reacts to anything, and if wearing long sleeves it will be contantly setting it off.

I forgot to say before, any watch a person is interested in, check around the internet, see how the lume is or whatever else.

There are tritium gas watches, they have small tubes that have a usuable glow for around 25 years, Carnival brand are the cheapest.
Also, watches with light absorbing luminous paint, you can charge them up by a light, best is a small UV torch. Seiko is the go to brand for big chunky lume watches, but I sold my riding Seiko when I bought a Carnival lume paint watch. Unlike my tritium Carnival this has a diver type bezel for timing events. I can read the time in the dark for the approx 1hr 20min. ride home from my Sunday ride.

With traditional leather saddles, just simply soaking them in water then letting them dry out can leave them permanently softer, although there were the exceptions that would survive a nuclear war along with cockroaches and coronovirus.
Don't know how water treatment would work out on saddles with a plastic layer though?

pwa wrote:

Bonefishblues wrote:

Slothman wrote:
Makes sense to me but tell that to my car seats!!!! Talk about sticky in the heat!

Many leathers, and almost all car seats, are coated so non-absorbant.

Yes, this breathing leather thing never makes much sense to me. I have never worn them (honest!) but aren't leather trousers supposed to be very sweaty to wear? And how breathable will any material be after someone has been rubbing wax into it? If ventilation is what is wanted, surely any saddle with a hole in will be best.

That may be true of other treated stuff but just the leather by itself is the nearest thing to its origin. Anyone who has had leather saddles will be aware how Proofide lessens the porousity rather than creating an impermeable barrier, at least for plenty of years, unless a person overdoes it, that's so moisure is able to evaporate.And the underside should never be treated unless you have to because of a non-mudguard bike, I wouldn't even then, in the rain I push a plastic bag under the saddle or ride slow enough not to spray it.

Remember leather was once skin, designed for sweat to pass through and evaporate.

Did anyone mention saddle height in relation to handlebar height (not just riding position)? The higher the saddle, the narrower a saddle can be.

If a saddle is of a constant material, then you have to be compatible with it, unlike something such as leather that adapts to you.

Fairly upright, maybe a Brooks B66/B67?

As kylecycler said, them Selle Italia leather saddles. My Storica was comfortable out of the box, and got better as I rode it, brilliant saddle. I have no experience of the others in the range, nor any info whether they still make them?

I have found the Team Pro Classic a good tough saddle, based on the B17 Competition (not the B17 Champion), unfortunately yet another one that 'Brooks' has stopped making as Selle Royal switches over to them rubber things made in Italy. They even make a rubber B67 now! So the only Team Pro Classics are what retailers already have out there.

If you look around the internet and can find instructive comments that originated in bygone decades, or saddle experts in the present day, saddles should only be proofided on the "finished side", as the instructions on this vintage tin show,

In more recent years Brooks instructions were to proofide the underside once and not polish off for a non-mudguard bike. The whole point of a leather saddle is that any moisture, rain, sweat, absorbed can evaporate through the pores on a natural underside, even more so than the upper side. Proofide is not meant to create a solid impermeable waterproof barrier but to provide some water resistance.
Sheldon Brown's information is mostly brilliant, but not on leather saddles. He also mentioned something about never tension a saddle. You can choose not to, and Brooks' warrantee will be void, and void if you proofide it excessively or not at all, or use the dreaded neatsfoot oil.

Should they cost more because of all the processes involved in making them, or less because machines are churning them out by the hundreds of thousands of links?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8j5-dC6_x8

At squeek points I would heat the Proofide tin slightly to liquify it and dip a fine artist brush in and put some where I need it. Do the heating outside if possible if the fumes would affect you. I would never proofide a saddle underside if for a bike with mudguards.

For me nowadays i'd get a Flyer instead of a B17, in the past it would have been the lighter B17. What i'd actually get and have now on one of my bikes is a Brooks B73 type layout saddle, except mine is a Middlemore B3, and it's on a track frame bike. I find I can have a sprung saddle on a race-like bike or upright bike, but not have a narrow saddle on an upright bike.