Good point Jan.
Also recall that the aluminum-railed Idéale, which has just over twice the cross-sectional rail area of those other aluminum-railed saddles (87.5 sq. mm vs. 38.5 sq. mm - I'm so nerdy sometimes I even surprise myself!), tended to fail in fatigue after many thousands of miles of usage, and in more than one place (although not directly through the rails IIRC - I guess that tall rail cross-section really worked...).
Greg "alliage léger traité" Parker Ann Arbor, MI USA
P.S. What sort of aluminum seat pin should I look for to use with my Idéale 90B?
P.P.S. Hope the "accent aigu" comes through in Ideale....
> Date: Sat, 4 Jan 2003 10:23:47 -0800
> From: Jan Heine <heine@mindspring.com>
> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> Subject: [CR]Alloy saddle rails
>
>
> I don't think anybody mentioned this - if they have, please forgive:
> The Ideale saddles with alloy rails had not just little rods, but
> massive flat pieces (see for example the A. Faure in VBQ No. 2 or the
> Herse on the VBQ web site).
>
> Considering the concern about weight in French cyclotouring circles
> in those days, I am sure they lightened these as much as they could
> while still being reliable. Even the bikes for the technical trials
> didn't go much lighter. Most of the lightening for trials saddles
> appears to have been done in the leather, only a few holes were
> drilled in the alloy frames (and maybe they were reprofiled a little).
>
> So, barring any revolutionary advances in aluminum alloys, it makes
> sense that skimpy alloy rods will bend or break, since they have
> maybe 1/5 of the material of the Idéales...
>
> (Which is why the technical trials consisted of up to 750 km on rough
> roads, so that no "show" bikes were built, but actually functioning
> ones.)
>
> Jan Heine, Seattle