Brooks Saddle Problem, advice needed!
 

Hi, i am the proud owner of a Brooks Swallow. I have done 2 rides on it so far, a total of 3 1/2 hrs cycling so not much riding at all and all of those miles were dry. I proofided the saddle as the instruction manual said before riding it.

After the first ride i noticed the tension assembly at the nose of the saddle had some movement in it ie i could move it a few mm in any direction with my hand like it was a little loose. After my 2nd ride this has become more pronounced and iv noticed the saddle not as firm as it was when i first got it.

My question is this, is this normal? has the tension bolt worked loose and detensioned the saddle on me? or has it stretched so much that it has lost tension and made the bolt loose? im 175lbs

Or is this normal? and if not should i retension until its firm and there is no play in the bolt?

Thanks in advance

Had the same problem, tightened it and the same thing happened within a few weeks again, unfortunately this process was repeated until the tightening bolt ran out of length and the saddle was worthless...at which time I purchased a Brooks Professional and have lived happily ever after. It's a learning process and unfortunately, a spending process.

So do you think it has stretched? If so its stretched quite a lot in a short space of time to make the bolt so loose. Should i just leave it as it is? Is it meant to be loose? If i grab the leather at the tip of the saddle im able to move it up down and left and tight by a gd few mm, i can press on the middle of the saddle and make it sag with my fingers. Not sure if this is normal for a brand new saddle

The bolt should not be loose, the rattle will drive you nuts. Tighten but make sure you do not over tighten. Enough to take up the slack. Be very sparing in the use of Proofhide, I use it maybe 1 time a year. It should not sag like that.

Ok i will tighten it just enough to stop the rattle and take up the slack, is it likely the bolt has loosened itself from the vibration of the road? If so how could i prevent this from
re occuring?

Leather saddles go on these.


http://ab.img.v4.skyrock.net/4571/62...06_small_1.jpg

Yes, the various Brooks will need tightening occasionally, again, be careful not to overdo it.

Weird, I never tensioned any of my couple of Brooks saddles in several thousand miles I had them. Is this a QA issue?

Leather saddles should be MADE from those! Horse hide makes excellent razor strops and shoes. Saddles from the right portions would be quite durable!

I have a Swallow with Ti rails that did the same thing. It took quite a while to break in. I increased the tension on the bolt to take out the slack.

I was riding it quite heavy, at over 200lbs, and I suppose it's not really a heavyweight's saddle. I did Proofide it once.

I am not riding in at the moment because I am on the other side of the world with another bike and Brooks B17, but it really has become quite a comfortable saddle for me. The nose bolt is right on the edge of looseness, and the saddle does "talk" to me as I ride, but the comfort is the key factor now.

I'd just tension the bolt until the assembly just doesn't move about. Don't tension it up too much as you will find the saddle going hard again under your sit bones.

Ok thanks for the advice guys, just wanted to make sure i ddnt ruin it! I cant find the wrench that came with it, can u get away with using a normal wrench?

You might be able to get away with a normal open-ended wrench. If I recall rightly, the Swallow came with a difference shape wrench compared with the B17s... more like the traditional open-ended one, rather than a ring wrench with a gap to get it past the threaded shaft.

However, again from memory, the Swallow wrench has thin sides to it, and a normal wrench might not fit between the leather sides of the saddle.

Either the leather is stretching prematurely which is causing the bolt assembly to be lose, or the bolt assembly is loose in which case you can tighten it and probably be ok. If it's the leather you'll find more and more of the tension bolt will be engaged as the leather stretches, in which case your saddle will probably have a short life. Sometimes this just happens. Leather has some variation, and it's possible the leather on your particular saddle wasn't very durable. I'd mark the threads with a marker or something. If you notice it rattling soon after you tighten it and you have to engage more of that bolt I'd send it back. I'm 200 pounds and have about 1500 miles on my Brooks. I've never touched the bolt and it's doesn't look much different than the day I bought it.

I haven't got the Swallow in front of me, but it's a Ti version, and it is almost as though the nut itself is undoing as the frame moves back and forth while being ridden. The leather has the divots settled into it, but it hasn't become like a hammock. When I did tighten the nut, the saddle felt as though it was at the new, unbroken-in stage again, and I eased it off to the point of almost being loose again.

I don't honestly know. I have a Brooks B17 Ti and it hasn't had any issues with the nut/bolt/frame interfaces. And as I have said previously, the Swallow took some time to break in (like about 4,000km, I think) but now it's nicely comfortable 2000km further on.