The lovely Ideale in question was sold by Peter Naiman who was kind enough to send me a tracing of the saddle on a piece of terry cloth. Thanks, Peter! The pattern was used by my local Amish shoe shop to trim the skirts on a high mileage Ideale 90 that will be at the Cirque on a Gitane track iron. Maybe I can scan the template and throw it up on the web.
This started when I butchered one of the much maligned ADGA saddles for practice. Because the leather on those is not very high quality, I left "tabs" to allow tieing beneath the saddle to provide stiffening to replace the I-beam effect of the former skirt sections. Somewhat visible here on the Viner testbed:
http://www.users.fast.net/
I have a few beat up flared skirted Ideales 70 and 80 that I'll be trimming to swallow patterns or, at a minimum, punch and lace to improve comfort. Because the Ideale leather seems quite thick and sturdy, I suspect that they won't require much if any reinforcement. Both are beat enough that it doesn't seem a sacrilege to trim them. Wouldn't feel the same though about a Ideale 90 w/ legible stamping and reasonable condition and shape.
Swallows on cycles with bars a good bit below the saddle seem very comfortable to me based on my experiences with a handful including B-15s, Lycett L-15, a modern Brooks Swallow, and a seriously alligatored old Wrights (Olympian? - the heavy one with the springs and padding beneath - an absolute design riot and very comfortable). I'd sure like to find another Wrights like that in decent condition, mine has ripped due to a previous outdoorsy life without care; it would be worth the additional pound and a half of weight. Have a Mansfield just waiting for one of my infinitely slow project bikes to come together; that should be motivation enough to get it done.
I hope this brings some of the other devotees out to natter about swallow style saddles and it would be good to have a template library for various Ideale and Brooks models up on the web.
Charlie "really likes swallows (and Ideale 90's)" Young Honey Brook, PA
Ken wrote:
> A Swallow-like saddle by Ideale was sold on Ebay within the past two
months,
> by a US CR-member. I haven't seen one before or since, but I did see the
> odd Brooks Swallow back in the late '60's and early '70's.
>
> Does anyone have a pattern for "home-Swallowing" saddles like B17s or old
> Pros? I have a not-too-firm B17 that would be a good candidate, i.e.
> nowhere near museum grade.
>
> Ken Freeman