My Dawes of (im)Perfection.

Scobswell made a new chum this weekend.

I took a work-mate (not the Black and Decker type) out for a smaller London Loop ride on Saturday, he's an experienced road and track runner and he's ran three London Marathons so pretty fit but he really fancies riding a bike now as his knees and feet are beginning to suffer from years of running.

I offered to take him out on a loop. We did this...

He did good seeing as he committed to riding it on his only bike which he hadn't ridden in years, an early 90's hefty great solid 'mounting bike' (sic) with perished knobbly tyres and he insisted on doing the whole route in '15th' gear all the way except for the hill in Dartford where he was totally knackered and had to give in and gear down to get up the hill, blummen nutter! He said he wanted to see what all the fuss was about riding SS!

In other news I've taught myself how to repair saddles. Scobswell came with a slightly tired and shabby-chic Brooks B17, it needed serious TLC, so I supplied some.

So i drilled out all the rusted and damaged steel rivets...

...and separated the seat leather from the framework, then treated the dried out hide to a rejuvenating drink of pure Neatsfoot oil so the leather might start bending again and hopefully wouldn't split when I re-attached it to the saddle frame with nice new shiny large head Brooks copper rivets...

and lo and behold after a morning of drilling and hammering and buffing....
Phwoooaaarrrr!

...reunited with Scobswell, its a lot more suited to my new super-speedy (ish) riding position as the big ol' B67 is designed for a more upright stance I believe and I could feel the sides of the saddle rubbing against my legs a smidge.

Yey.