Re: [CR]Ideale shape-equivalent to Brooks (Team) Pro?

(Example: Events:Cirque du Cyclisme:2002)

Date: Fri, 6 Jan 2006 14:56:56 -0800
Subject: Re: [CR]Ideale shape-equivalent to Brooks (Team) Pro?
To: kohl57@starpower.net
From: "Brandon Ives" <brandon@ivycycles.com>
In-Reply-To: <380-22006156221553339@M2W098.mail2web.com>
cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
cc: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org

On Friday, Jan 6, 2006, at 14:15 US/Pacific, kohl57@starpower.net wrote:
> Ideale 90 which is pretty close to a Brooks small rivet Pro in all but
> comfort. Dare I suggest I find them... more comfortable! Brooks went
> through a stage when the leather covering was just SO unforgiving.. I
> had a small rivet Pro on my PX-10 (as they usually did) but gave up
> and put back
> the Ideale 90... ah! French cows are that much more cuddly I guess.
> But did
> Ideale make a true big rivet version of the Brooks Team Pro? Sorry,
> don't know.

I remember back when I was working at The Bikesmith we measured a bunch of the leather saddles for thickness. If I remember correctly the owner Val had a theory that Brooks used thicker leather and were cured to be tougher than Ideale saddles. We never had any new Ideale saddles to measure so that may have skewed the results. As I remember the Brooks saddles were thicker in general. Ideale saddles seemed to vary in thickness more than the Brooks also. I don't think anything was concluded about the curing of the leather used.

Like Peter I've always found Ideale saddles to be softer than brooks, but they also never lasted as long. Has anyone else done the same leather thickness experiment? best, Brandon"monkeyman"Ives Vancouver, B.C.