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Tensioning my Brooks B67 saddle following severe discomfort!

As an introduction, this was my Brooks B67 when I first got it in May last year. I had bought it for my Koga aluminium touring bike. Once I'd got the height and tilt adjusted correctly for me, it soon became very comfortable. In this photo you can see that the back is fairly level, while the nose tilts up a fair bit, which is how I had read you were supposed to set them up. Tensioning was something I thought I would forget about for the time being, and that I would know when to do it, if at all. 

May 2018

These photos were taken about two months later in July.  As you can see there is still very little sign of sit bone impressions.

July 2018

July 2018

It was so comfortable that on a trip last year (read the first episode here) of 4 days cycling, I only wore padded undershorts on one of those days, riding 35 - 45 miles each day. The only slight soreness I had was under my sit bones. I kept count of the miles I did on it, until September when I reached over 600 miles.

Around about November time I noticed that the bike generally didn't seem quite as comfortable as it had done, although this thought was just a germ of something at the time - you know how you notice something but it hardly registers in your brain? Well, I carried on riding this bike but rather subconsciously chose to ride my steel Trek more often than before, realizing that it was a lot more comfortable going over bumps in the road. I tend to use the Trek for shopping and shorter trips, and use the Koga for longer trips, but as I don't do very long trips in the winter it didn't matter too much that the Koga was becoming uncomfortable. 

The discomfort was in the frontal region.....  I even bought some of these padded knickers - Equetech Dressage Briefs - because you can get them with the padding just at the front. They are actually very comfortable, and I like them because they are mainly cotton. They make a good alternative to cycling shorts/undershorts, although I found the padding to be a bit firmer than my other padded shorts. But to be honest they didn't really help a lot, and as I hadn't needed them before I couldn't see why I needed them now!

However, a couple of  a couple of weeks ago I went out on a ride of about 28 miles on the Koga. I didn't wear any padded undershorts, reasoning that perhaps I had just got too soft! But the discomfort was bad...... too bad to put up with any longer. I couldn't even go over those thickly painted lines on the road designed to reduce your speed without slowing right down and lifting off the saddle. And, although the saddle had always tended to creak slightly (and I know this is a common thing with Brooks saddles) it hadn't bothered me before, but on this day it drove me up the wall! 

Then I thought that perhaps I was running my tyres too hard. I don't pump them up excessively hard but I have always tended to think that harder was better than softer, so I thought they might well be too hard. I investigated the matter.... One of the best articles I read was in the Breton Bikes blog. I read it all and then reduced the pressure in my tyres accordingly. However it still didn't make much difference to my comfort level. But as I was pfaffing around doing the tyres I suddenly noticed that my saddle had now gained very obvious sit bone impressions, and the sides were flaring out a bit. 

Here are some pics -

March 2019, before tensioning

March 2019, before tensioning

It's hard to really get a good photo that shows the difference between when I first got the saddle and now, but believe me there really was quite a big difference! And that's when the penny dropped......it must be time for tensioning!! 

I was told as a child by one of my sisters, in the teasing way that siblings do, that I was "slow on the uptake" and it has only been in recent years that I have come to realize that that is not because there is something wrong with my brain but just because I think about things a lot, and more often than not that thinking results in my understanding something better than if I had perhaps been quicker on the uptake. So, although it had taken me a long time to realize what the real problem was, I had learnt a lot about tyre pressures along the way.

First I attempted to turn the bolt on the tensioning pin with the saddle still on the bike. I certainly didn't want to remove the saddle having taken so much trouble last year to get the angle right. Then, once again proving my slowness, another penny dropped when I looked at photos on the internet of other people's Brooks saddle and I realized that I could just remove the seat post with the saddle still on it! I made sure I could see the mark on the seat post that I had previously put there to make sure I put it back at the right height. I turned the nut, although thought that the bolt was turning with it (as others have said it sometimes does) but Handy Helpful Husband said it wasn't and I finally succeeded in the tensioning! I rode it around, did it a bit more, and then - rode last Saturday for a very comfortable 48 miles!! With no padding!! Oh the bliss of a comfy bike again! AND - the creaking has largely gone. I don't mind a little creaking....

I meant to take a photo of the tensioning bolt after I had done it, to give the exact position of the nut on it, but in my eagerness to try out the saddle I forgot. I get infuriated sometimes when I am looking at photos of this sort of thing on the internet but can't quite make out exactly what is what, or where something is in relation to something else, so apologies to anyone reading this for whom my photos are not precise enough! I hope you can see in this one that I took afterwards roughly where the nut is. I'm really not sure how much I actually turned that nut in the end, but it was definitely more than just a quarter turn, which is what I have seen recommended as the starting point. By all means start with a quarter turn, but don't be afraid to turn it more.

I also decided, despite having wanted to be sure of keeping the saddle in its original position, that I wanted to tilt the nose down a bit, although  again it's hard to show in the photo below that it's any different to how I had it set up in the first place.  Maybe it isn't much different.....

March 2019, after tensioning, and after altering tilt

And just in case this might offer any further help, here it is with a spirit level on top. Pity I never took a photo like this when I first got it as that would have made for a proper comparison.

March 2019, after tensioning and after altering tilt

I am now a much happier bunny and looking forward to long trips on this bike again!

Re-soling my Saltwater sandals

NOTE; I've decided to start putting links in a list at the bottom of my posts, rather than inserting them in the text.

Ever since the demise of my extremely comfortable Teva sandals (I could walk miles in them) after about 14 years wear, I have looked for something similar to replace them.The newer Teva versions are nothing like as good, and neither are any other "walking" sandals that I've seen. In 2016 I discovered Saltwater sandals and sent off for some; I guessed they wouldn't be quite the Teva equivalent I was looking for, but I very much liked the design. They come in lots of colours, including an olive green that I would love to have.


These are mine, pictured on the cobbler's last that belonged to my grandfather, who died before
I was born -

They are a perfect fit, and very comfortable, and I can cycle in them. However - here are some facts about my right foot, which I'm sure you are very interested in. A few years ago I realized that I was having problems with slight numbness in the toes of said foot, and after a lot of reading up I realized that I had what is called a Morton's toe (on both of my feet actually, but the left foot isn't negatively affected by it) which is where your second toe is longer than your big toe, due to the metatarsal bones in your big toe being shorter than they should be. This was causing the numbness. I knew instinctively that I needed to be able to feel the ground more as I was walking. I then came across "Born to Run" by Christopher McDougall, a fascinating book to read if you are interested in how we naturally walk, but don't, when we wear (most) shoes. Look at a baby's foot, at how the toes are splayed out, and look at an adult's foot........!!!!!!! It's shoes that are responsible for that change. Many people, when they are diagnosed with some sort of foot problem will be recommended to use orthotics; however this is often exactly what they don't need. What they actually need is to get back to a more natural way of walking, and a change of footwear may well be the answer rather than orthotics.

I have since struggled to get shoes that fit the natural shape of my foot, especially winter ones, and that have thin enough soles to really feel the ground beneath them. The soles on the Saltwater sandals are indeed thin, and are fine on short distances, but I have found they are not so good when walking further, or on hard surfaces. To be honest I suspect it may be the type of sole material used as much as the thickness, but I thought I'd try adding some extra material to the soles to see if this made the difference I was looking for.

So, could I, and should I, Do It Myself?

I thought of looking for a pair of shoes or sandals in a charity shop, cutting off the soles and sticking them on my sandals, as I already had some suitable shoe making/mending glue from a previous (unsuccessful...) project, but I didn't see any. Next step - I thought I might as well find out what the local cobbler would charge, so took the sandals in and asked.

£30!!!! Gulp!!

Apparently it was "the work involved" that made the charge so high. Well, to be fair to all craftsmen and women, I know that people don't always realise what or how much work is involved in a job, but there was no way I was going to spend that amount.

Instead I went home and ordered some stick on soles instead. I actually bought 2 pairs of very large Vibram men's soles - just the top halves, and each pair came with a tube of glue. My intention was to cut two top halves and two bottom halves.

One of the half soles, with glue

First I sandpapered the soles of the sandals, as instructed, to roughen them up. I should also have done the same to the new soles, but I forgot.....but they weren't all that smooth anyway so I thought they'd probably still stick. I then cleaned the sandals' soles with meths.


I put the sandals on top of the sole, and drew round them -

Cutting the material was actually quite difficult. I used a Stanley knife and went very slowly so that the knife wouldn't slip, and then I proceeded to spread glue over the whole of each sandal sole. (I have to admit the glue stinks, and you really do need the window open. This is much more stinky than the other stuff I have.) However, I realized pretty soon that the stuff begins to dry out rapidly and and you need to just put glue on a SMALL area, spread it, and then do another bit. Otherwise you could end up with the whole sole covered in glue but not being able to spread it as most of it would have already half dried.

I then left the soles to almost completely dry for the requisite amount of time, about 15 minutes, and then stuck the soles on. Meanwhile I realized I'd made another mistake by not drawing round the bottom halves of the sandals when I cut out the top halves i.e. before I spread the glue all over the soles...... But I managed to do it all right at this stage anyway without the uncut bottom halves sticking to the sandal. That may not be very clear......but basically the lesson I learned was that you have to think carefully, before you start, about the order you're doing things in!!


Here is the completed job -

As you can see I didn't get the new sole fitted to the sandal on the right quite perfectly - that was mainly due to it being hard to cut exactly on the line I'd drawn. And maybe my inaccurate drawing in the first place....

I've now got about an extra 3 mm.

I'm really pleased with how well the job turned out, although I won't know whether it's made the difference I'm hoping for until I wear them again, which won't be just yet....and the total cost was £11.97, a lot less than the £30 I'd have had to pay the cobbler!

Incidentally, I think that my grandfather would have been using this cobbler's last in the days when everybody had to make do and mend. My dad wrote some notes on life when he was very young in the 1920s, and I think that probably shoe repairing would have been something his parents, and others like them, had to do themselves, along with any other mending - hence having the cobbler's last.

Anyway, that's me "soled" on doing my own shoe repairs.....next pair to do will be my beloved Dr Marten's (the style I have has a more natural foot shape than many shoes, and soles that aren't too thick, although still not completely natural) which have a hole in the leather and a split in the sole. I bought some new ones to replace them but I'm not giving up on the old ones yet.

LINKS

Saltwater sandals

Very interesting Guardian article on Saltwater sandals

Born to Run