Subscribe Feed (RSS)Leather Saddle History
September 12th, 2009 by Bill | Filed under Brooks Archives.
Before the revolutionary Unicanitor plastic saddle came along leather was the standard material for bike saddles. Most of the top brands came from Britain. Photographer recycletimber1 has sought out the homes of some of the many UK leather saddle manufacturers and posted pictures on his Flickr photostream. recycletimber also has a good collecton of vintage saddles on the same photostream.
The Wrights saddles look very similar to Brooks saddles. I'm a bicycle commuter and give daily thanks for the comfort of my Brooks saddle. I wonder whether the some of the now defunct leather saddles were up to Brooks' standards.
Most basic saddles from the different manufacturers looked very similar. In the period after WWII the industry shrunk and consolidated. Brooks bought most of the brands and the Brooks-owned brands were often duplicates of Brooks models with variations to hit different price points.
Any other manufacturers of leather saddles beside brooks today ?
I can think of Lepper, in the Netherlands, and new entry Gilles Berthoud. There are also a lot of knock-offs showing up. See "Another Leather Saddle"