General Cycling Discussion - Saddle cleaner?

I just put on a NOS white San Marco
Concor on my Trek (which was what it came
with), any suggestions for cleaning saddles,
and possibly something to protect it (keep it
clean?) thought about Armour All, any thoughts?

Marty

Marty,
I assume it is leather. I use Tanner's Preserve Leather Cleaner and then follow it up with their Leather Conditioning Creme. It doesn't make the saddle overly slick like ArmorAll will.

You can find it in the automotive section at WalMart. It is relatively inexpensive and works well. I also use it on the leather interior of my truck.

Yeah, another interesting topic! I have always cleaned all parts of my bike (almost all), except for the saddle. Taking that few micrograms off might just make a big difference in the way the ride and the speed you can attain. Hope to hear people sharing comments on how they clean the saddle, the most I do is probably cleaning the saddle with my shorts when I sit on and get out of the saddle.

Taking that few micrograms off might just make a big difference in the way the ride and the speed you can attain.
I probably shouldn't raise to the bait but. . .
The point is its a white saddle and I've seen all
too many that have greyed having dirt, sweat etc.
ground into it.

if you don't like the posts or threads here
take your attitude over to rec.bicycles.flamewars
I'm sure you'll be very appreciated over there.

A white saddle is just like white tape. Gets dirty real fast and hard to clean. White shows everything. One of my first rules when i buy anything is "Never buy White as you have to work 10 times harder to keep it clean" :D

Stew:D

For cleaning your saddle you might try..... saddle soap. Saddle soap is used to clean tack. "Tack" applies to that leather stuff that people stick on horses to ride them like bridles and saddles. And when horses exercise they sweat and the leather gets dirty. You can get saddle soap almost anywhere. I found some at Albertsons.

If it's synthetic leather then weak bleach will probably work okay, it worked fine on an old Raleigh saddle. WD40 and elbow grease would probably aslso work (I've used it to clean white plastic). If it's genuine leather you might need to be more cautious - maybe something from a shoe shop?

Richard

There is some stuff called Blech-White sold in automotive stores for cleaning the white-walls on tires. It works great on whitewalls. Maybe it will work on your (synthetic?) saddle.