mackgoo

I love my Brooks Swallow.

rhm

Ah! Yes, I have heard that Brooks won't do them anymore. I've also heard that sometimes people send them an old saddle to be recovered, and they receive back a completely new saddle. I can understand why Brooks would do that... but these customers were not happy.

I don't know who you tried to contact out East (I hope it wasn't me!) but I can definitely put new leather on that for you, if you want, or for someone else if you want to give up the frame.

Big Block

Slightspeed,
Tony Colgrave has the necessary stamps for the Brooks B17 Campagnolo.
I have his email address if you would like to follow it up.

rhm

Nice article, with good photos of Tony's method!
Sure is a good looking saddle at the end.

But to be clear, I have those stamps as well. I've done two of those Campagnolo B.17's. I did this one about 18 months ago, but (as you can see) I did not get good photos. Using the hood of my wife's car as a backdrop seemed like a good idea at the time, but my camera couldn't figure out what to focus on.

chelvel

Join Date: Jan 2009 Posts: 30,695 :-)

chelvel

There are no updates in the blog since April 5, 2017. Any ideas why?

tony colegrave

For many years before they ceased to offer any factory repair service at all (late 1980s) Brooks would only re-leather one of their saddles if it was a then-current model, and would do so with a current pattern top regardless how old the saddle happened to be. Previously they'd been a bit more 'accommodating', but even then they'd only offer only a non-specific top, simply stamped 'Made in Great Britain', if they could find a mould of suitable size/shape to make a leather top to fit the frame, etc.

When the current owners of the Company re-introduced their own repair service a few years ago it was made clear that they would only offer the limited re-leather service, but for several years prior to that (and since) I've been regularly receiving requests for 'period correct' re-leathering which had been sent to the Company and were forwarded on to me by the management in Birmingham. For the last two or three years I've advised anyone from the States with such a request that they should approach Rudi Mayr and/or Simon Firth, to see if either was willing/able to undertake the work, and only if they chose to ignore my advice did I agree to do it myself.

I don't know, of course, how many such requests (if any) may have been ignored/rejected by the Brooks management over those years, but I've no reason to suppose that this would have happened except very occasionally. So far as the matter of the Campag. model B.17 Comp. Std. raised in this thread is concerned, I can only assume that either the request didn't make it clear that the saddle was considered significant enough to merit special attention or that it fell into the hands of Oliver Parsons, a fairly recent recruit to the UK management who seems to be exclusively interested in his wretched Cambium project. Bear in mind that none of the good folk in Birmingham has much knowledge of/interest in anything made more than, say, ten years ago.

Cute Boy Horse

That's what makes me laugh about all these boutique fashion brands that say they're all about heritage and tradition. All marketing nonsense. They love the bare-bricks and unvarnished wood "rustic" look that would make the founders wonder why the building isn't finished.