Jerry,
I'm with Marc on this one. The leather on my swallow-style cutaway Ideale with alloy rails (no spring up front) is butter-soft, and it is the most comfy saddle I own. It reminds me of the dear-departed Brooks Pro I lost with my first Raleigh Pro when it was stolen, tools, panniers, and all, in 1976. (With over 3000 miles on it, my originally-black Brooks had turned honey-brown, and was comfy as could be.) The nose is narrower than a Brooks, too, which fits me better.
My only issues with the alloy-rail saddles are the lack of fore-and- aft adjustment range and the fatigue factor on the aluminum rails over time. If I could get a seat post with 3 CM of setback on it to fit the Ideale clamp (or, alternatively, could find someone who could build replacement round rails to substitute, in order to use a 3 CM setback "standard" seat post), I'd still be riding mine, but I ended up sitting on the rivets when "properly" positioned on my bike relative to the pedals and cranks. I'm hoping that my Allegro, with longer TT and more slack angles, will reunite me with my beloved Ideale and put me in the right position, too.
Ride on your Ideale and you can quickly make up your own mind, Jerry. After all, it isn't Marc's, or Tony's, or my anatomy that needs to be happy, it's yours. (And I would bet that your ischial tuberosities will thank you.)
Regards,
Jon Spangler Alameda, California USA
On Jan 28, 2009, at 9:39 AM, <classicrendezvous-request@bikelist.org>
wrote:
>
> Message: 12
> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 17:30:10 +0000
> From: Tony Colegrave <tony_colegrave@hotmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [CR] Ideale Alloy Rail saddles
> To: <jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net>, <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org>
> Message-ID: <BAY129-W22E9BB966D87390463777BFEC80@phx.gbl>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> I think that we've been down this road before, Jerry. In my
> experience
> , the only alloy-railed Ideales that could be described as
> reasonably com
> fortable over fairly long distances are those later Model 90s with
> spring-l
> oaded noses. Not all the '90s' have those springs (the majority
> don't, I'
> d suggest), and yours appears to be one of those that doesn't,
> although
> , if the leather has stretched to a degree, it might be possible to
> 'im
> provise' such an arrangement?
> Ideale seem to have come late to the realisation that there was
> a need f
> or some sort of suspension in these girder-type frames - Brooks
> introduced
> it in their first attempt at such frames, in the early 'thirties,
> but s
> oon abandoned it and 'gave up' on girder frames altogether pretty
> quickly.
> I don't think that Mansfield ever produced a sprung girder frame.
> I've always imagined that Ideale used steel rivets on either
> side of the
> nose of most of their saddles for the good practical reason that
> they are
> very much easier to 'set' than copper ones, when working at the
> sort of a
> ngle presented by most nosepieces; on many of the wire-railed
> Ideales (an
> d some of the earlier alloy-railed ones, as well) there is a
> mixture of s
> teel/copper rivets into the cantle-plate - most usually the steel
> rivets ar
> e in positions to which direct access 'inside' the cantle is
> hampered by th
> e rails.
> Tony Colegrave, Northiam, East Sussex, U.K.
>
>> Date: Wed, 28 Jan 2009 06:52:02 -0800
>> From: jerrymoos@sbcglobal.net
>> To: classicrendezvous@bikelist.org; edvintage63@aol.com
>> Subject: [CR] Ideale Alloy Rail saddles
>>
>> Just received yesterday from a French eBay seller the first alloy-
>> railed
> Ideale saddle I've ever owned. This one was not cheap, but a
> little more
> reasonable than some examples have gone for of late. I blame Jan
> Heine in
> part for the recent escalation of alloy Ideale prices. His
> wonderful book
> The Golden Age of Handbuilt Bicycles, although not exactly on the
> New Yo
> rk Times Best Seller list, I think has enormous influence in
> collector ci
> rcles, and it seems about half the bikes pictured have alloy railed
> Ideal
> e saddles. I think this has spurred interest in those saddles and
> driven u
> p the price.
>>
>> This one was slightly more than $250 and certainly not NOS - the
>> stamping
> s on the side are worn down so far ot is hard to tell the model
> number, w
> hich is claimed to be a model 90, which is consistent with other
> details.
> But the Rebour stamp on the top rear is still very clear, and the
> saddle
> is still supple,with no cracking and retains its original shape
> quite ni
> cely.
>>
>> I have a question for those who have used these extensively. How
>> is the
> ride? Some have said that the ride is very harsh and uncomfortable
> due to
> what is essentially an I-beam undercarriage. If so, I'd think
> these woul
> d be very tiring on a long event. Now I get the impression that
> the Techni
> cal Trials and some other similar events may have been of moderate
> length
> , but bikes like those pictured in Jan's book were also extensively
> used
> in the long events we usually associate with randonneuring,
> culminating i
> n PBP. I know at least a couple of CR members have done PBP and
> probably a
> lot more have done randonneur events of several hundred Km. Are
> these all
> oy rail saddles very tiring in those long events? Does anyone feel
> compell
> ed to switch to steel rail saddles for long distances?
>>
>> One other question I've long pondered but never asked. I note
>> this model
> 90 has copper rivets for all but the two rivets on either side of
> the nose
> , which appear to be steel, although the rivet on top of the nose
> is co
> pper like those in the cantle plate. I believe every other high
> end Ideale
> I've seen is the same way - all copper except on either side of
> the nose.
> Why did Ideale do this? I doubt they were trying to save a couple
> of Fran
> cs (espeically the old Francs worth only a few US cents) on their
> top model
> s. Did they judge that the rivets on either side of the nose needed
> to be s
> tronger than the others? Presumably steel ones would be stronger
> than copp
> er. If this was the reason, Brooks seem not to have shared their
> concern
> .
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jerry Moos
>> Big Spring, Texas, USA
>> _______________________________________________
>
Jon Spangler
Writer/Editor
Linda Hudson Writing
510-864-0370/FAX 864-2144
MOBILE 510-846-5356
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