Vintage Balloon Tire Bicycle Saddles

Video Transcript

"Now I'm going to talk a bit about saddles or seats on a vintage balloon tire bicycle. The deluxe bicycles had saddles made of leather. Now we've kept this one here on this bike. You can tell the leather is falling apart, there's some kind of horsehair, or some kind of animal hair underneath; this is a great classic saddle. We ride this bike a lot, so when we ride it, we don't have this saddle on it, but the saddle is something you don't want to throw out, it increases its value. An older balloon tire bike is going to have a spring on the front like this, it's called a hairpin saddle. And most all balloon tire bikes are at least going to have, even the later ones, are going to have a spring like this on the rear. They'll all, or almost all of them will have a crash rail like this; this is for, if your bike falls over, it's going to land on this and help protect your tank and accessories on your bike. Another unique thing on this bike, this being an older balloon tire bike, is the seat post. These L shaped seat post are indicative of a pre-war bicycle, pre-world war II. Today's seat post are generally straight up and down, and they're generally hollow. This is one solid bar, very heavy just in itself. And when you see an angled seat post like this, you know you've got a pre-war balloon tire cycle."