Well someone else sent me a link to a listing of a large number of new and some classic saddles. According to that data, the Ti Swallow is actually a bit lighter than advertised, 354 to 358 gm actual weight, while most of the plastic saddles are heavier than advertised. The Ti Swallow is about 10 gm heavier than a steel rail Turbo or Concor which is probably less than the variation in individual leather saddles, and actually about 25 gm lighter than a Selle San Marco Rolls. So the Ti Swallow is in fact about the same weight as most of the classic plastic saddles. And I do suspect that means that the leather plus rivets is lighter than a plastic shell plus padding and leather cover, since I would think the Ti rails, cantle plate and nose bolt would be at least a bit heavier than the steel rails on a plastic saddle, since those don't need a nose bolt or cantle plate.
Of course modern saddles with carbon ot Ti rails can be quite a lot lighter yet, but my concept of a "light" saddle is set by the classic Turbo, Ideale 2002 or Cinelli Unicanitor, and the Ti Swallow measures up to that while providing the comfort and style of a traditional leather saddle.
Regards,
Jerry Moos
> From: Mike Schmidt <mdschmidt56@verizon.net>
> Subject: Re: [CR] Weight of Leather vs Plastic saddle tops
> To: "jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net" <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>
> Cc: "classicrendezvous@bikelist.org" <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Date: Friday, February 13, 2009, 4:17 PM
> Concor Supercorsa = 351 grams
> Condor Superleggera = 261 grams
> Brooks ti railed limited edition swallow = 361 grams
>
>
> Mike Schmidt
> Millington, New Jersey
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Feb 13, 2009, at 4:49 PM, Jerome & Elizabeth Moos
> <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
> > Late night I was examining a recently acquired Brooks
> Ti Swallow and was again struck by how light it is. I
> don't have an appropriate scale handy, but it feels to
> me lighter than a classic plastic saddle, like a Turbo or a
> Concors. Anyone actually weighed these who can say which is
> lighter? It occurs to me that many people have an
> exaggerated idea of how heavy the actual leather is in a
> traditional leather saddle. Never really thought about it
> this way, but I'd wager the leather top is actually
> quite light, while the vast majority of the weight of a
> traditional saddle is in the steel rails, and most
> especially in the cantle plate and the nose bolt assembly.
> >
> > In fact I suspect the actual leather top weighs less
> than the plastic shell of a plastic saddle plus its thin
> leather cover and the padding in between. I'd even
> guess that you can add the rivets on a Brooks to the weight
> of the leather and it will stiil come in at less than the
> weight of a selle Turbo less the Turbo's rails. After
> all, a plastic saddle shell has to be relatively thick to
> support the weight, especially at the rear, where it must
> provide the support provided by the cantle plate on a
> leather saddle. The plastic saddle does, of course, have
> the advantage of not needing the relatively heavy nose bolt,
> since it does not stretch and therefore need not be adjusted
> to compensate. Anyone ever weighed the components of a
> traditional leather saddle versus those of a lightly padded
> leather covered plastic saddle?
> >
> > So the rails, cantle plate and nose assembly of a
> leather saddle is one place on a bicycle where titanium
> actually makes sense, especially since it actually produces
> a better ride in addition to a lower weight. Now I would
> doubt that the titanium rails, cantle plate and nose
> assembly of a Ti Brooks can actually be lighter than the
> steel rails of a Turbo, which need no cantle plate or nose
> bolt. But probably they don't need to be, but only need
> to reduce the weight enough to preserve some of the
> advantage of the leather cover (plus rivets) over the
> plastic shell with cover and padding.
> >
> > Now there was a version of the Turbo with alloy rails
> and I believe even a realtively rare version of the Ideale
> 2000 series plastic saddles with Ti rails, both of these
> very close to the end of the CR era. But of course since it
> was only rails, with no cantle plate or nose bolt, that were
> made of lighter material, the savings were not as greats as
> with an alloy or Ti frame on a leather saddle. Anyone know
> of any traditional leather saddles that used aluminum rails
> of the same diameter and shape as traditional steel rails,
> as the alloy rail Turbo did? Ideale evidently thought that
> such alloy rails would be too weak, as they used alloy
> "I beams" on their alloy saddles. But I don't
> know that such conventional size alloy rails on a leather
> saddle would be any more likely to fail than on the alloy
> Turbo. I know there were traditional leather saddles that
> used alloy cantle plates and steel rails. In fact I have
> one, an Ideale model 134, the saddle that
> > was also made as the Ideale "Columbia"
> honoring the American space shuttle. I suppose the next
> logical step in weight reduction might have been to make the
> rails as well of alloy, but of conventional size, like on
> the plastic Turbo. But I don't know if anyone ever
> actually did this on a leather saddle.
> >
> > BTW, as a bit of trivia, only the original T&B
> French made Ideale Columbia had the allow cantle plate. The
> later Leppers-made (though still bearing the ideale name)
> Columbia had an all-steel frame. I have one such
> Leppers-made Columbia. The rails and cantle plate are also
> a slightly different shape, which is noticeable from the
> fact that the stamping of the space shuttle Columbia on the
> side is much closer to the forward-most rear rivet on thhe
> Leppers version than on the original T&B version. It
> appears that Leppers must have cut the Columbia top to the
> original T&B pattern, but then fit it to a
> not-quite-matching frame from some other Leppers model. It
> also has the Rebour stamp at the rear, but those more expert
> than I in these matters do not believe the Leppers version
> actually received the Rebour treatment. I do not know if
> Leppers ever made the regular Ideale model 134, without the
> Columbia stampings.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Jerry Moos
> > Big Spring, Texas, USA
> >
> >
> >
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