Brooks C17 Re-Imagined

[Ken Yokanovich]

I have been a Brooks fan for 20+ years primarily using B17's and Flyers. I added some Brooks Cambium C17's to the fleet beginning maybe 5 years ago.

Leather: 

Pro-Aesthetics, comfort, shape

Con-Durability, water (sweat) resistance. Lots of hours on a saddle in hot & humid weather causes the leather to stretch when not covered, riding on covered saddle is not as comfortable.

Cambium:

Pro-Durability, water resistance, comfort

Con-Fabric durability, aesthetics. I have several saddles where the fabric has worn off. The all-weather is more durable but destroys clothing.

In April I was hit by a car and one of my C17's was damaged (amongst other bike and body parts.)  This seemed like the perfect opportunity to follow through with my idea to re-cover a C17.  I removed, re-shaped to remove road-rash, and polished the rivets so they all matched. 

Tried my hand at a first experiment with wet-forming leather using the shell of the C17 for the pattern.

Once the leather dried, I glued it down over the original shell with contact cement and replaced the hardware. The pattern in the leather is from my unsophisticated rubber-band clamps, on future efforts I may try something different.

I am looking forward to seeing how the natural leather holds up, maybe even on my upcoming 10-day tour on the HubbuHubbuH.

[Patrick Moore]

Very nice job. Let us know how well the contact cement keeps the leather down. I glued nice, thick brown leather over the base of an original issue Flite, and I’ve had to re-glue the leather (later using real barge cement) as it kept peeling off starting from the nose when my pants snagged the leather there and loosened it. In fact, this happened a short while ago and I finally put 3 small pop rivets in the nose to forestall this.

This from the original installation in 2013. I don’t know what that untidiness under the saddle nose is, but it’s not there now. The leather shows much more beausage* now. I periodically treat it with leather dressing, mink oil, and Johnson’s Furniture Wax.

* All right thinking and properly educated people agree that this word is pronounced, “Bo-SAHHHJ.”

Patrick “no damned bewsij on my bikes!” Moore

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Patrick Moore

Alburquerque, Nuevo Mexico, Etats Unis d'Amerique, Orbis Terrarum

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