Quality Control: Not impressed with "Brooks of England"

On Mar 31, 10:37*pm, Lou Holtman wrote:
Andre Jute schreef:



"Brooks of England"
BROOKS B73 LEATHER SADDLE
interrim report by Andre Jute
"Not impressed with the quality control"

I reported here earlier that my three-helical-coil Brooks B73 saddle,
against expectation, doesn't sway at the front.

Today I noticed, when I leaned over the saddle in the car park at the
mall to unlock the bike, that the nose of the Brooks B73 saddle swayed
from side to side. It turned out that the bottom nut holding the
spring to the rails was loose and spun nearly off. I probably missed a
nasty nutcrusher of an accident by five minutes, which is a call to
disaster too close for comfort as earlier I was speeding down long
winding downhills and then riding on a very busy main road with my
shoulder eighteen inches from speeding trucks, and if in surprise I
swerved it could have resulted in a serious, possibly fatal accident.

I had the Brooks tension spanner in my toolkit but it doesn't fit... I
finger-tightened the nut and rode home (less than a kilometre) slowly,
stopping a couple of times to check that the nut wasn't spinning off.

At home I determined that the saddle has nine nuts: the tensioning
nut, two seatpost clamp nuts which had been correctly tightened by me,
and six nuts on the saddle used in the assembly of the saddle that I
blithely assumed such a reputable firm as "Brooks of England" would
have tightened competently.

Inspection quickly showed that of the six assembly nuts, three were
loose. This would be unacceptable assembly standards in a third world
factory, never mind from a firm that charges premium prices and is
proud to do so.

I think that for a premium price Brooks ("of England") should deliver
a premium product, not something so shoddily put together that it puts
the rider's parts and life at risk.

I'm not impressed at all. The question arises whether Brooks upholds
any tradition "of England" except the postwar one of shoddy
workmanship. Read on.

*******

There's more. I don't know if the tensioning nut is also supposed to
be 13mm (or some close imperial measure) but, if it is, the tensioning
spanner Brooks sells in its saddle care kit with the Proofide will not
fit it, as it doesn't fit any of the other nuts on the saddle but a
proper 13mm spanner does.

The problem, even after identifying the correct spanner, is that the
saddle's framework and support structure is badly designed, presumably
back when labour was cheap, skilled and patient, and didn't talk back
to the bosses even when they committed design solecisms; certainly the
framework design has not been modernised in the slightest. It would be
very easy to replace the smooth-head bolts, presumably tightened into
a square cutout, with sunken-hexheads, so that at least one can get a
tool in or, alternatively, to sell a spanner flat enough to get in
between the springs.

And I don't mean that tacky little die-stamped "spanner" Brooks sells
to adjust the hammock tension of the leather. Merely to determine
whether it is the same size, I put it on the seat post clamp nuts and
pulled lightly on it. t immediately started stripping and folding up.
It's crap. it might adjust a loose nut on a shaft but it won't handle
torqueing up a nut on which, as we have seen, in very common
circumstances the rider's life might depend.

Instead, Brooks doesn't tell one anywhere that I could find in the
literature what size spanner is required. By the time the customer has
tried to fit all his likely-looking spanners into the tiny spaces
between the springs, the chrome on the springs has become acquainted
with the spanner. By the time he has actually tightened a few nuts an
eight of a turn at a time before trying to refit the spanner in the
tight space inside the helix, the chrome has taken a few hits.

I can only say I hope the chromium-plating is of a better standard
than Brooks's assembly standards, or I shall shortly have to paint the
springs on my brand-new Brooks saddle.

The point here is off course that if the chrome is to last the life of
a saddle one buys for a lifetime, or even an appreciable part of that
time, Brooks should arrange matters so, among other means by proper
assembly, that the customer never, ever, brings a tool near the crome,
never mind in unavoidable and repeated contact with the chrome.
Underneath the chrome is steel; if the chrome is damaged, the steel
will rust.

*****

One doesn't expect one's bicycle saddle to endanger one's posterity
and life through shoddy construction.

One expects that if standard tools won't adjust some product, that the
manufacturer offers the correct tools in the box or at least
optionally as an extra (as does, for instance, Shimano and Rohloff).

"Brooks of England" doesn't even meet these minimum expectations.

I'm severely brassed off and disappointed at "Brooks of England".

Andre Jute
Visit Jute on Bicycles at
*http://www.audio-talk.co.uk/fiultra/...20CYCLING.html

To write to me, lose the digit 1 from the visible address

Andre, you just discovered Englands love of tradition. If it's a crap
design in the beginning it stays crap because it's tradition..

Lou

Some traditional British products are still good. I use QUAD hi-fi and
I used to drive Jensen Interceptors and Bentleys, good products built
by craftsmen who take pride in their work. -- AJ