A few weeks back I gave a report on several neat and rare accessories that I had picked up. I said there was one "score" which out-did the rest. This post is about that item.
There is an older gentlemen at Panjiayuan. He refers to himself as "Old Man Jin", even although you would not think he was so old by looking at him. Age aside, he performs a great service to the bicycling community: He re-covers seats. In leather. Take your old tensioned leather Lepper, Brooks, or in my case a Chinese "OK" Brand seat to him and he will re-skin it with a genuine cowhide top.
Take for example, my seat. Originally, my seat looked something like this: The standard Chinese "red" leather seat. Leather being a somewhat nebulous category, I have since heard it called a "lacquered composite seat", and indeed it is covered in lacquer.
I happen to have a spare seatwhich I hand over to Mr. Jin. He spends about 30 minutes trying to discuss the fine points of seat making with me in my very bad Mandarin. Do I want aluminum rivets?..or brass?...or copper? What color leather? He shows me several seat stampings in different colors. Am I sure I want to use this as a base? ..because Chinese seats are lightly sprung as the average Chinese is a lot lighter than us Laowei. Well, who isn't these days? I say no, I want my bike to stay all Chinese, or at least all Asian.
In the end I decide on brown leather, brass rivets, and for the base...go with what I brung. Yeah. Brung.
Two weeks later, I have a marvel to behold. A "Old Man Jin" bespoke saddle.
You may say, "It is a nice seat, but it's no Brooks."
No. It isn't. That's the point.
Sure...I could have just dropped a lot of money on an expensive, mass-produced Brooks saddle. They are available in Beijing. But what would be the fun in that? I would never have met Mr. Jin, never would have learned about saddle making, never gotten to practice my Mandarin on a really weird topic, and never gotten a bespoke saddle. I also wouldn't have had an interesting story to tell. Besides, the end result is mighty fine, I must say....
In truth, I was so pleased with the results that I went back to Mr. Jin with ANOTHER saddle. This time I had him punch holes in the sides so I could cross tie them and prevent side flare. I also cut a badge from the back of my old Flying Pigeon mattress saddle and had him put it on the back. How did it turn out? We'll see in another post.