Aachen to Smethwick - a factory visit of a special kind

Starting in Aachen, we rode via Maastricht further along the Albert Canal to Antwerpen.

For dinner, we had the finest Belgian fries. After that, we cycled a little bit further until it became more rural so we were able to pitch our tents for the night. We completed 179 km on the first day.

The next day, we rode further to the North Sea. After a tough battle against the wind and a mandatory loop on the beach we reached the port of Zeebrugge 90 km later.

Here the "Pride of York", a ferry, left towards England in the late afternoon.

We had already booked the overnight crossing including a cabin with a view of the English Channel and a nutritious breakfast for € 247.50 via P&O Ferries (link). The ferry sails daily and crosses over to the east coast of England to the city of Hull. The cabin with bunk beds even had a private bathroom. Just pure luxury for us. In the morning, we turned our clocks back one hour to British time and plunged into the left-hand traffic of England. The route led us over the Humber Bridge and we continued on the typical lush country roads through beautiful cultivated forests and landscapes.

Oncoming cyclists friendly greeted us and even the motorists steered rather brutally into oncoming traffic to avoid getting too close to us. After 159 km, the day’s goal was reached and we spent another night in our tents. After an almost dry night, we rode the last 83 km until we reached Brooks Smethwick factory tired and a little bit proud.

The following morning Steven, the UK Sales & Events Manager of Brooks, led us through the production site of the world famous leather saddles.

The production in Smethwick is divided and also spatially separated into two parts. In the first part, British steel is processed with some specially developed machines into springs, frames and plates.

These individual elements are then joined together to form the base of the different models.

In the second part of the production, Belgium dyed leather from British cattle is punched out to the basic shapes of the saddles.

Then they are soaked for about half an hour to make them more pliable for the trimming and shaping which happens in decades-old bronze forms.

The leather elements then get their embossing and are tensioned on the racks using rivets. Select models go through this step, which includes the beating of the rivets and edge bending, by hand.

Finally, the saddles are polished, inspected and packed before they are shipped all around the world. About 4500 saddles per week are manufactured this way in the suburbs of Birmingham with an extreme attention to detail and surrounded by a lot of history.

The first leather saddles were manufactured at Brooks in the 1880s. The cycling legends Fausto Coppi, Eddy Merckx and Jacques Antequetil used these British products for countless hours. Eric Murray, the Brooks chamfer, reached legendary status with New York city bike hipsters. The Wellington Real Ale Pub in Birmingham equipped some of their beer taps with limited edition of Swallow-saddles. Once you press this saddle, the multi-award winning Saddle Black Beer by the Purity Brewing Company flows. The beer alone was worth the ride.

Good things don’t need to change and it’s hard get more classic.