I've got a Brooks Team Pro that was imported from the UK by Larry Black at the time you couldn't buy Brooks in the US (Late 70's?). A real nice one, it was pre-softened, not the 'pre-softened' stamped version that was hard as a rock. This was comfortable from day one and still the nicest of all my Brooks saddles. Somewhere along the line I used Semichrome to polish the hammered copper rivets and got some on the metal Brooks badge. Took the silver logo right off! Couldn't even read the name, and it's been a black badge ever since.
Dan Artley in Parkton, Maryland USA
Archive-URL: http://search.bikelist.org/getmsg.asp?Filename=classicrendezvous.11003.0600.emlFrom: "tom.ward@juno.com" <tom.ward(AT)juno.com>Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2010 03:03:18 GMT Subject: [CR] blacked-out Brooks logos ( http://search.bikelist.org/query.asp?SearchString=%22blacked%2Dout+Brooks+logos%22&SearchPrefix=%40msgsubject&SortBy=MsgDate%5Ba%5D ) I've ended up with several Brooks saddles over the years that had their logo-plates painted out (solid black), and seemingly long ago. My question is: was this "a fashion"? Was it some kind of anti-glare politeness in the Criterium? Maybe representative of a general antithetical feeling about logos and branding--or perhaps a hopeful anti-theft measure, i.e. camouflage? Was there a dialogue about such a practice at the time? I'm a few years too young to have been part of the zeitgeist. I was riding a road bike in the Seventies, but it was a Junior (I do know that it was french, and that my older brother painted it something
very like Raleigh's bronze-green because he was painting our grandfather's former '66 Jeep CJ5 that color, and had left-over paint. He also installed Suntour derailleurs.). We also painted my first cub-scout "pinewood derby" car at the same time (bronze-green metal-flake with gold mist fade "windscreen"; I was twelve in 1979.... Is there anyone here who actually painted out a Brooks nameplate back "in period", and who might comment upon their younger self? Tom Ward Bonita, California, USA