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A Pro no more

Old 01-04-23, 12:57 PM
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spiker
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A Pro no more

The Brooks Professional I've had since 1976/7 bought the farm, the actual leather saddle is still in great shape, the rails snapped where it mounts to the seat post. I recall there is someone who will cut & mount fresh leather on your old seat frame, wondering about the inverse, can my old seat go on an old rail?

Anyone have that guys contact info or suggestions.

an aside: Anyone reading this that was on the fall CCRT ride, this happened on my next ride, a 17 mile loop home to the roundabout in Dennis, just over a mile from home. Looks like if I had ridden the entire ride that day, it would have failed somewhere near that roundabout.
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Old 01-04-23, 01:55 PM
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Originally Posted by spiker View Post
The Brooks Professional I've had since 1976/7 bought the farm, the actual leather saddle is still in great shape, the rails snapped where it mounts to the seat post. I recall there is someone who will cut & mount fresh leather on your old seat frame, wondering about the inverse, can my old seat go on an old rail?

Anyone have that guys contact info or suggestions.

an aside: Anyone reading this that was on the fall CCRT ride, this happened on my next ride, a 17 mile loop home to the roundabout in Dennis, just over a mile from home. Looks like if I had ridden the entire ride that day, it would have failed somewhere near that roundabout.
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Old 01-04-23, 02:05 PM
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Originally Posted by spiker View Post
The Brooks Professional I've had since 1976/7 bought the farm, the actual leather saddle is still in great shape, the rails snapped where it mounts to the seat post. I recall there is someone who will cut & mount fresh leather on your old seat frame, wondering about the inverse, can my old seat go on an old rail?

Anyone have that guys contact info or suggestions.

an aside: Anyone reading this that was on the fall CCRT ride, this happened on my next ride, a 17 mile loop home to the roundabout in Dennis, just over a mile from home. Looks like if I had ridden the entire ride that day, it would have failed somewhere near that roundabout.
Yes, I can do that. Send me a PM at your leisure.
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Old 01-04-23, 05:24 PM
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Originally Posted by spiker View Post
The Brooks Professional I've had since 1976/7 bought the farm, the actual leather saddle is still in great shape, the rails snapped where it mounts to the seat post. I recall there is someone who will cut & mount fresh leather on your old seat frame, wondering about the inverse, can my old seat go on an old rail?

Anyone have that guys contact info or suggestions.

an aside: Anyone reading this that was on the fall CCRT ride, this happened on my next ride, a 17 mile loop home to the roundabout in Dennis, just over a mile from home. Looks like if I had ridden the entire ride that day, it would have failed somewhere near that roundabout.
If it were mine, I would look around for a stretched out or cracked saddle with a good undercarriage and swap tops. I've never seen the rails break on a Pro. The challenge would be getting the rivets right. You can get them from Brooks, and even a complete undercarriage, but then you have to ship them from England.
https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/repairs
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Old 01-04-23, 06:55 PM
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Originally Posted by sbarner View Post
If it were mine, I would look around for a stretched out or cracked saddle with a good undercarriage and swap tops. I've never seen the rails break on a Pro. The challenge would be getting the rivets right. You can get them from Brooks, and even a complete undercarriage, but then you have to ship them from England.
https://www.brooksengland.com/en_us/repairs
What he said. Conversely, you could sell me your broken-railed Brooks so I can cop the top for my own torn-leather Brooks.

New rivets should only be necessary if re-leathering, because if I recall correctly you can just release the tension on the saddle and remove the top from the undercarriage in order to swap parts around.
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Old 01-04-23, 07:57 PM
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Originally Posted by thumpism View Post
What he said. Conversely, you could sell me your broken-railed Brooks so I can cop the top for my own torn-leather Brooks.

New rivets should only be necessary if re-leathering, because if I recall correctly you can just release the tension on the saddle and remove the top from the undercarriage in order to swap parts around.
No, sorry, you cannot just release the tension &c; they don't disassemble that easy. The only way to disassemble a Brooks type leather saddle is by removing rivets. Depending on what you're trying to accomplish, you may not have to remove all of them.

The frame consists of a C-shaped steel cantle plate welded to a steel rail, plus the nose hardware, which is three more pieces of steel, one on which is called the nose piece.

The leather is riveted to the cantle plate with six rivets, and to the nose piece with three.

OP broke the rail, which means the frame is dead. Six rivets need to be removed (destructively) to free the leather, which can then be riveted to a new (or used) frame. The nose piece and its three rivets can be saved.

Brooks frames break now and then. I think I've done this exact job five or six times; which means I've seen five or six Brooks frames that broke this way.
i find this oddly reassuring; if they never broke this way, i'd think they were overbuilt; the fact that they break very rarely tells me they have just about the right amount of steel in them. It's a compromise, of course. The right amount of steel for one rider may be too much or too little for the next (see Goldilocks).

Last edited by rhm; 01-04-23 at 08:03 PM.
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Old 01-04-23, 09:37 PM
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Old 01-05-23, 10:12 AM
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