saddle rain cover

 I use leather saddles from Selle Anatomica. I use 'em, not because I'm smitten with leather saddles, but because they're the least uncomfortable things I've found.

But, of course, being leather, they're subject to deformation and destruction if they get saturated, so rain covers are suggested (as they are with Brooks saddles). 

(Selle Anatomica makes a rubber saddle... but it's harder than the leather, and so does not suit my posterior.)

I've got it in my head that saddle rain covers should cost $3, should be cheap plastic, and should be readily available. But the saddle covers recommended by both Selle Anatomica and Brooks fit none of those criteria.

A web search to find saddle covers that fit my criteria elicits results... but they're advertising items, made to be printed, and sold in lots of, say, fifty. I don't need fifty.

I'm sewing now, right? So I went to the local Joann shop, and found some cheap table cover plastic with a cheap felt backing, made up some prototypes, and found a shape that works if I'm riding it.

But I also transport the bike, and The Excellent Wife (TEW) and I have recently gotten a trailer hitch bike rack. With all of the fuss and complication, it's still better for my scoliotic spine than hoisting the bike into the hatch of the Prius.

On a recent ride, I decided to test the prototype as a transport saddle cover, where the wind would have at it. The results were not pretty.

That's a pretty hefty rip in the middle.

So it works as a riding saddle cover, but not a transport saddle cover.

I've got some waterproof polyester canvas coming. We'll see how that works.

Hrmph. I may have to give it up and try that Serfas Variant that I've been avoiding.