Hi Jerry, I have only been casually following the emails on this subject, but your description of the effects of soaking your beloved saddles raised my interest. I have never ridden bikes fitted with leather saddles before and so my interest in them was pretty limited until I recently acquired two Ideale model 90's.
I will try out the soaking method on one of the saddles to see the effects.
Anyway, it was a great pleasure to read your account and I am sure that many will be soaking their saddles as a result.
All the best,
Peter Rogers
Barrie, Ontario, Canada
>
> We had a brief discussion recently on the subject or soaking leather
> saddles overnight or even a couple of days in a bucket of water to
> rejuvenate them. The idea of soaking a saddle in a bucket of water had
> always horrified me, as I suspect it does many on this side of the
> Atlantic, although Tony Colegrave, perhaps the most prominant CR expert on
> leather saddles, and Mike Barry, who grew up in UK and also knows a thing
> or two about the subject, both testified to doing this rather routinely.
>
> Reassured by exchanges on and off list with Tony, I gave it a try.
> Initially I soaked the original B17 from my 1962 Schwinn Superior, with
> the cool older brass badge and the '62 stamp on the cantle plate. It was
> badly cracked and sagged, and I made matters worse with massive Proofhide
> application top and bottom before reading Tony's advice advising against
> using Proofhide on the underside. This made it impossibly soft and I
> feared it was ruined, so with nothing to lose I soaked it for a couple of
> days.
>
> At the same time I soaked my very first Brooks saddle, a Professional, an
> original purchase upgrade on my circa 1973 LeJeune. It got an intense
> breakin on the 1974 Northeast Ohio Century, of which the first 50 miles
> were in heavy rain. It had been on several other bikes over the last 35
> years, most recently my 1986 Peugeot PZ-10. It had become dry, somewhat
> cracked and sagged on one side, and I thought it had simply worn out. So
> again nothing to loose.
>
> After a couple of days of soaking, I was astounded with the results. The
> Pro regained its shape and most small surface cracks were healed. It is
> now on the Romic tourer I'm commuting on this week, and it looks and feels
> fine. May not be good for another 35 years, but it will now probably far
> outlive me. With the B17, the cracked top layer mostly flaked off in
> soaking. I applied black shoe dye to the topside to restore the color and
> treated with Proofhide. Not exactly NOS, but the cool old badge and '62
> stamp are desirable and it is back on the 1962 Superior and feels pretty
> good on test rides.
>
> This emboldened me to soak several other saddle, all with great results:
>
> A French "Club" brand saddle with badly spread side now has excellent
> shape again.
>
> A Titanum frame Ideale 90 with a pronounced raised ridge down the center
> has had the ridge eliminated.
>
> An Ideale model 59 with alloy frame, but with a lot of surface cracking
> and discoloration had the cracks mostly healed and discloration addressed
> with shoe dye. List member Dave Abraham very recently fetched $455 on
> eBay for a used and somewhat scuffed mod 59, which probably exceeded
> Dave's expectations, so rejuvenating my mod 59 was well worth the effort.
>
> With these spectacular results, I even soaked two nearly new saddles, a
> Swift maybe 6 or 7 years old but with only perhaps 500 km of use and a
> Swallow that was NOS 400 km and a few months ago. Both had developed some
> lines and a slight sag to one side. Soaking corrected the shape of each,
> which they hopefully will now hold longer. I even soaked an NOS Ideale
> 87, which I will use to replace my 1973 Brooks Pro on the PZ-10, but which
> had been sitting in the parts bin and drying out for years and probably
> decades.
>
> Currently soaking an old Brooks Pro, probably 60's or early 70's, that I
> long ago had given up for dead. But after two days in the bucket it looks
> pretty darned good. BTW I note that the older Brooks saddles and Ideale
> saddles, especially older models, seem to use thicker leather that takes
> longer to thoroughly wet.
>
> I think all of this points out to me what Tony Colegrave and many other
> leather saddle experts in UK and elsewhere have long understood. Namely,
> that leather, unlike the modern plastic stuff, is an organic material, and
> that maintaining proper moisture is the key to performance. In a wet
> climate like England, this may occasionally require soaking used saddles,
> but in a desert climate like here in West Texas, one may have to soak
> saddles more often or even soak an NOS saddle that has sat for years in
> the parts bin.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jerry Moos
> Big Spring, Texas, USA