Cycling UK Forum

gxaustin wrote:I have a rather poor example of a Mansfield Saddle. Anyone heard of them?
Also Wrights, Ideale and several Brooks.

As mentioned, I have had three of them. The company was owned by Albert Mansfield, they had several locations in the centre of Birmingham and one further out, in the Handsworth suburb.

They use the toughest leather, from a cow's lower back, called butt leather. They also form it and compress it with massive force in machines. I think they use a vegetable tanning method, maybe oak?

Thanks. Brooks make their own Proofide treatment which is the most well known, other saddle companies make their versions of it.
I think Brooks invented the modern saddle clamp which became the industry standard (before today's micro adjust etc.) I feel designs got narrower in general, Middlemore even made a sports roadster, the B3, and simpler rail layouts of saddles in general.

I would like some info on this please, do other people collect saddles also?
I have collected bike saddles for 21 years, February 2008 was when I bought my first proper saddle, a Brooks B72



So over the nearly 22 years of collecting I have aquired quite a few saddles! I'm like Drew on Salvage Hunters, love all the history and craftsmanship of things, so for me personally I couldn't resist and not collect them.
Although, I have been told by someone on here that the amount of saddles I have is abnormal and unreasonable, words to that effect, I assume they are a cyclist, but maybe they are not at all?
So, as mentioned, I am wondering if anyone else collects saddles or just me?
How did the collecting increase? Once I had discovered Brooks it then progressed into getting examples of the companies they took over, Lycett, Leatheries, Wrights. That progressed into getting examples of saddles made in Birmingham in general, so my interest now covered Mansfield, Wilby, Gough, Albion Mills. I ended up owning two Wilby saddles, eventually selling both as tastes changed - one of them to A E Wilby's grandson! As far as Mansfield, I owned three, one being a 'must have' aluminium girder rail.
One Birmingham firm, Middlemore, I wasn't sure about, I knew there was also a Coventry firm called Middlemores, were they the same? There was no inforamtion readily available. I ended up putting in many hours of reasearch on the saddle company and family members, also discovering there was another Birmingham saddle company Lamplugh who merged with Middlemore, these two Birmingham companies being taken over by D Mason, except for the Coventry division which survived as Middlemores.
Research on Lamplugh showed they set up a factory in Paris, this led me to branch out into buying some Lamplughs from France then moving on to the legendary French brand Ideale, along with others such as LF Pearl and Talbot (connected to the car company).
I hadn't moved on from Middlemore though, I started a group on Flickr, I wrote the Wikipedia article, I wrote the Wordpress blog. I did a lot of cycling to researched saddle factory locations around Birmingham, I was given a picture of one of the Wrights locations and one of the Mansfield locations but never saw any existing other factories that I looked for, now demolished or unfindable. In Coventry I did discover that the last Middlemores factory building still exists.
Having changing tastes over the years has meant I have sold various saddles as the interest dropped, I even sold my prized Brooks B17 Sprinter limited edition after I randomly discovered the Sella Italia Storica, made the traditional way with modern improvements - it replaced the Sprinter!
I had bought four Middlemore saddles from the US, two of then being Viscount branded. That was before I discovered that Viscount had ordered saddles from Middlemore but refused to pay for them, this in the time of the Plastic Crisis in the saddle world, must have badly damaged Middlemore and contributed to the company going bankrupt, so those two saddles had to go.
What happened to Albion Mills? They were taken over by Middlemore back in the 1800s.
Middlemore also did a few finished saddles on a an Iscaselle base, so I then built up an Iscaselle collection, buying saddles from such places as Italy, Hungary and yet more from the US.

So that's my situation as a collector without going into much further details.

Surprising there's virtually nothing about the Sella Italia leather range on the forum. I'd definately buy an Epoca if I had a bike that needed it.
On one of my bikes i've got a Storica, 149mm width and their lightest, definately one of my favourite saddles ever. It seems like Brooks have stagnated with their leather saddles and want to just concentrate on them rubber things before they abandon leather eventually??? The Storica with its triple layer leather and shape feels modern and up to date. A titanium version would be the perfect saddle.
I did have an unused Mitica which I sold, I might regret that!

Can anyone else now use the name CTC then, that would a lucky grab for some other cycling group?

Why does the CTC want to disown its heritage, it's not like it was run by Jimmy Savile or something? At least NZ saw sense with not going for that new flag rubbish.

The simple distinctive CTC logo is a million times better than this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOBNMMUwhFE

Someone built a dirtjump style quadrike.

Yes, just a daydream really. But that first picture I added, one of them would be great for cruising around the suburb or park on a hot sunny day, and the other 364 days of the year.

I'm not into carbon but in this case a superlight carbon quadrike might be very interesting. Or at least 953 steel, so it wouldn't feel like propelling the weight of two average bikes.

Royal Enfield quadrike.

I've wanted one of these for years.

Bike, trike, quadrike. For the motorised versions: motorbike, motortrike, motorquadrike.
The word quadbike sounds incompetant, like a child saying "more betterer" instead of just "better than".