Brooks emailed or called and proposed a saddle idea: We could “design” any saddle we wanted, provided it used existing Brooks materials and technology. We’d get a six-month exclusive on it in North American (which includes the famous Canada). So we said OK, Yippee, thanks, we’ll take a B .17 in gray, copper rivets, black rails, and pebble top. It’s a perfect gray, and it will pick up nice beausage along the way.
Basic black instead of copper rails to match the rivets? Right. We didn’t want the blinginess, especially on the gray. Ti rails? We asked, Brooks nixed. That’s fine, and keeps the price down. We didn’t want an elite-price saddle. Could we get pebble top and carved lower flaps? Yes
We said we didn’t need an exclusive. We’d rather just buy them like normal, but they liked the B.68 launch photos, and wanted a repeat. We didn’t want an all-boy shoot, so we asked a local, Samantha Q, to ride, and that worked out.
It is a beautiful saddle, but there are no eyes on the part of your body that rests on the saddle and hides the beauty. Riding strangers can’t see it unless they’re positioned just so while you’re standing on the pedals, so it’s mainly lunch-stop and lock-up beauty. The pebble top may or may not be a B.17 first, but the B.68 has it, and it doesn’t seem to help or hurt either.
By mid-March anybody will be able to get a gray B.17, but for now, in North America, you’ve got to deal with us or one of our esteemed affiliates. They won’t know about them unless they read this or you pop in with yours and they ask.
Through October we’ll take $10 off when you buy it as part of a complete build. This includes builds in progress, but not builds already boxed up and sent. It’s only $10. Email us @ homerhilsen@rivbike.com if you'd like us to add one to a bike on order and/or apply the discount.
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Length: 275mm
Width: 175mm
Height: 65mm
Weight: 540g steel
