Well in the spirit of old school bike culture i figured id share a event that i found quite interesting. involving me, very cold weather, and my old leather/plastic hybrid saddle the Avocet touring II.
I was on my fine mary way to school this morning (8:10am) when i noticed a 2inch tear on the right front side of my saddle (much like the one above just to the right of the split). seeing as my morning commute is pretty fine tuned to get me to class right on time i kept going, mearly cursing under my breath at this random misfortune. (you see i had gone on a small ride two days prior and i had seen no tear or anything before this ride.) well anyway i went on through my day with no real thought on the matter, the day went on.
at about 8:00pm igot on my bike to take the nice little 3mile downhill ride to my house and, as i started spinning up on the first hill i heard a loud snap, immediately followed with the ridiculous thought "did my saddle just crack?" well much to my shock and dismay it did. . . my guess is the cold air mixed with me getting on it and right off going hard along with the 30+ years of ware was just the recipe for disaster to deal the final blow to the majestic thing. . . sad yes especially as i think of all it must have been through and finally this did it it. (i did treat it with some re finisher the other day but i think it was too little to late as the bike and i assume the saddle is just over 30 years old)
so my question is. . .
Has anyone ever heard of this happening before. or is this just like many other parts on my very old bike. . . just a case of very old parts?
as i just found out via Evan that this is plastic and leather which makes much more sense as to the snapping sound. and the breaking part as well.
At first I thought you broke your leather saddle, but it is plastic. I'm in the process of experimenting with custom molded saddles. If you have not yet disposed of that saddle, and feel it fits well, I might try and construct a new copy to it's well worn shape.
ReplyDeleteoh yeah after i read your comment and thought about it that makes so much more sense as to why it snapped and i thought it was something like really tough leather at first because in the tear it had some weird looking surface. but its just leather wrapped plastic or something like that.
ReplyDeletebut yeah i still have it what exactly does making a copy require?