do brooks vary this much?

inaperfectworld

i broke in a b17 champion narrow last winter and only persisted on account of the reported enthusiasm for them, because it felt pretty damn hard and hardly the armchair that others describe. after 1500 miles, well i can't say it is as comfy as an armchair but i tried my old gel saddle for comparison and that one was real torture. so i bought another champion b17 narrow for my other bike to be broken in over this winter and during this first 100 miles i have thought how much less unpleasant the breaking in seems this time; i thought it was my backside that was used to brooks, but comparing them side by side in terms of "give" over sit bones area, in terms of the wings moving outwards when pressed from above, and in terms of "wrinkliness" of the leather in the sit bone area they are pretty much the same!! this second saddle has had just one initial application of proofide. on the first saddle i was applying proofide monthly to try and get the wretched thing softer. on this basis i have to suppose that brooks vary hugely. maybe this is why there are strong for and against views?

rrsodl

I didn't know the Champion narrow existed - I thought there was only a narrow version of the standard B17.

I have two brookes saddles but they are differnt types, one is a team pro and the other one is a champion. In my experience the pro is harder to brake in than the champion.

Rick

andrew_s

a) the skin from cow A isn't going to be identical to the skin from cow B, so yes, they do vary.
b) a large part of breaking in a Brooks, at least for new users, is just getting used to sitting on something that's harder than your average plastic saddle. If you replace an old Brooks with a new one, that bit's already done so all that's needed is enough use to dimple the leather under your sit-bones. This is why it's possible for some well toughened people to take a new Brooks out of the box and go for a 250 mile ride on it.

Monty Dog

Masochists!

acorn_user

Hurt me more!