Brooks Saddles: Made With Child Labour!
Remember the problem with the saddle on my Pashley? One of the rear coil springs on it’s Brooks B33 Saddle had broken, and the people at Brooks offered to either repair the saddle for me, or send me a new set of springs so I could do it myself . . .
Well today, I did it myself. And in so doing, I proved that Brooks not only has a long history and tradition that goes back to the Victorian era, but that they also have Victorian, child-centred employment policies.
The nimble fingers of children are the only possible way they can be assembling these saddles - it took me over half an hour to replace the two springs, and I reckon that most of that time was spent trying to get the nuts to start on the threads of their studs. Only a child’s fingers could possibly get in between the wires of the springs with any sort of comfort & speed!
Actually . . . 30 minutes of swearing was a whole lot quicker than taking the saddle off the bike and sending it back to Brooks. And I got to appreciate how they’re put together - speaking of which, here’s a video of one of their spring-making machines doing its stuff (Oh, those long winter nights are going to just fly by here . . .):
OK - in all seriousness, I’m pretty sure that Brooks DON’T employ child labour to assemble their saddles, and that their customer service is first class. So thank you Brooks, and thank you Mr Green who answered the phone when I called Brooks, for the replacement springs you sent me.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 09/18/2010
- Time: 15:20:47
- Total Time: 1:00:00.00
- Calories: 292
- Distance: 10 miles
- Average Speed: 10 mph
Are those nuts on the wrong end?
No, that’s just how it should be - the nuts go inside the springs.
Brooks ain’t the only one! I used to have to “borrow” the neighbour’s 10 year old daughter to get a couple of bolts off the old Honda Civic I had; there was no way, no how that my hands would fit in the area they left for the removal of those two bolts.
Aaron