Colt and cutaway saddles in general The flaps that get cut off are part of the saddle's structure. Without the flaps, the saddle sags sooner. The Swallow deals with it by riveting the two sides together underneath, but I've never seen a well- ridden Swallow (mostly they go on Show Bikes, not Go Bikes), so I don't know how well it works. Just because I haven't seen it and don't know doesn't mean they aren't out there, and it works great.
The Colt deals with it, if it continues to deal with it the way it did when it was introduced in the '80s, by overtensioning. That's what goes on with the Swift, too, and you can see it manifested as a slight dolphin-hump from front to back. It's always kind of funny when mouths talk for crotches, but when my mouth channels my crotch, it says, "Hey man, that hump puts a lot of pressure right where I don't need it." I got the first two Colts in this country way back then, as gifts, and I wanted to love that saddle, but I couldn't do it. Another thing to examine is the rail shape. On the Swift (152mm wide, compared to 160 for the Pro and 170 for the B.17), the rails stop being parallel farther from the nose, which means you can't shove them back as far. Everybody I know except Keven shoves his/her saddle back as far as it'll go, and 90 percent wish it would go back more. I think, but as always I don't know, that the rail shape is guided by the cutaway leather, meaning the designer doesn't like the look of parallel rails way far forward on a cutaway saddle. I'd like to end this on an up-for-Brooks note. The saddles delivered since the Italians bought Brooks in 2004 or whenever...have been better than the earlier ones. I think Brooks is overplaying the Heritage card, but that may be necessary to reach a younger audience who isn't familiar with it. The boxes are suspiciously stout---who needs 'em that thick and cleverly comparmentalized?--but overall, it's still the saddle to beat, and the Brooks saddles of today are the best ones that I can remember. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch?hl=en.
