It’s been a good bikey season all around – the weather hasn’t been so crappy that we haven’t wanted to leave the house, and we’ve been able to make a few important updates to our bikes.
We both got new saddles, as the one that came with Patrina’s bike was already destroyed by rain when we got it, and mine started cracking after getting soaked, due to my BikeCap seat cover from Amsterdam saturating and soaking through the first day we had really heavy rain here after I got it. We sprayed the seat cover with some silicone weather-proofing spray, and it’s been great since then, but the damage was already done. Granted, my saddle was 58 years old (probably), so that’s a pretty good run :)
We got my wife the Brooks Flyer S saddle, which is the women’s version of the Flyer. It has the same leather upper as the B17, but is a sprung saddle. This has been nice for her, as it’s quite narrow, and her thighs no longer rub against the saddle as she’s peddling. She has said it’s been very comfortable for her so far.
I got the Brooks B67, as it’s very similar to the seat that was on my bike already (which I believe was a B66) – the only really notable difference (to me) being that it has a single rail instead of double rails.
The slightly bigger and more important update we made was to my wife’s bike, and that is, we got her a nice front rack.
The large 28″ wheels (larger than 700C) and Rod Brakes on my wife’s Raleigh presented us some trouble in finding a front rack that would work, but thanks again to Clever Cycles and The Dutch (who actually ride bikes like this), we found a solution – a rack from the company Steco. The rack still had to be slightly modified (that is, bent) by Clever Cycles to fit the handlebars correctly, but nothing structurally important, being steel. It’s a really nice, sturdy rack, and as quoted by David Hembrow, “The manufacturer rates this as capable of safely transporting 15 kg, but people quite commonly sit on these to take rides.”
I’m not sure I’d quite feel comfortable steering with a person on this (at least, not for more than a few minutes’ ride), but with moderate weight, it’s very manageable, and we hope to soon get a slightly bigger basket for it, something more like Dottie has had on her Omafiets:
Image via Dream Dottie
After that, a new Sturmey Archer dynohub/hub brake to replace my front hub, and allow me to have both front and rear lights. It’s nice to make updates to your vehicle that make it more useful to you, isn’t it? Especially when your bike looks so nice with them!
