As many on C&V know, I have a soft spot for collecting leather saddles.
Brooks, Wrights, Felt, Middlemore, and Ideale are all in my collection. Many are mounted on bikes which are ridden. A few Brooks are limited edition models.
Several saddles have been rescued from my town's "Stump Dump," which contains the scrap metal pile.
This week, while poking in the pile, where many treasures have been found in the past, I slid a battered metal cabinet off a--- stem shifter, turkey wing, steel rimmed, equipped Shogun. The bike was still wedged under a few other pieces of scrap, and could not be retrieved, but moving the cabinet, revealed an old leather saddle!
Looking a little closer I spotted the stamping in the rivets, and they read, "Ideale."
But the condition was so sad! The top had developed a scaling like I had never seen. It was reptilian in appearance.
To be continued....