In a message dated 9/10/02 12:34:13 PM Pacific Daylight Time, chuckschmidt@earthlink.net writes:
<< The Campagnolo 130mm micro-adjust Record seat post came out in 1956 before the advent of plastic saddles. Leather saddles like the Brooks B.17 have very tall frames measuring 70mm from the rails to the top of the saddle in the middle. Plastic saddles (intro'd around 1960) typically measure 45mm or so from the rails to top of the saddle.
If you add 130mm for the short seatpost to the 70mm for the leather saddle you get a total of 200mm. If you add 180mm for the long seatpost to the 45mm for the plastic saddle you get a total of 225mm, only 25mm (roughly one inch) taller.>>
On my Frejus TDF, there is also the clip acting as seat post binder. It adds
20mm to the frame size. The 130 seat post, with a Brooks pro saddle (taller
as you point out) along with the clip, means I can ride my frame size (62cm).
Most of the pictures I've seen of the old days showed guys riding bikes with
hardly any seat post showing, so 130s were long enough. Also a lot of bikes
were offered in limited sizes. Being able to get a production frame in 1 cm
increments seems to have been a 50s thing.
Interestingly, there was an Italian named Bitinni who modified Brooks saddles
to lower that height advantage. He thought it didn't look right, so he
shortened the rear frame where it went into the cantle plate, and reworked
the leather to soften it. According to the oldsters who told Matteo the
story, the pros used to line up to get their saddles worked on. I've seen
pictures of one.
Stevan Thomas
Alameda, CA