Brooks saddle on a road bike
rob39
Posts: 479
Hi all
Planning a long distance trip 500 miles and also need a new saddle, tried many saddles and positions and still struggling over long distances. Was thinking of trying a brooks on my Ribble road bike. Does anyone else use a brooks on their road bikes? also which one is more suited to road bikes??
Planning a long distance trip 500 miles and also need a new saddle, tried many saddles and positions and still struggling over long distances. Was thinking of trying a brooks on my Ribble road bike. Does anyone else use a brooks on their road bikes? also which one is more suited to road bikes??
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Yes...
B 17 possibly the best, otherwise Team PRO is a lot cheaper and very good... Swift good too... I might have a brown Swift with copper rivets for sale, actually...left the forum March 20230 -
I have a Brooks Swift with titanium rails on my audax bike. Fits me well- never any discomfort regardless of miles (or km) per day
Looks superb too- dark brown with big copper rivetsjc0 -
I did my JOGLE using my Brooks B17 on a Spesh Allez. The Brooks is now on my recycled 80's Raleigh for general day to day riding.
Fantastic saddle.0 -
rob39 wrote:Hi all
Planning a long distance trip 500 miles and also need a new saddle, tried many saddles and positions and still struggling over long distances. Was thinking of trying a brooks on my Ribble road bike. Does anyone else use a brooks on their road bikes? also which one is more suited to road bikes??
I use a Brooks Pro on both my track and road bikes and find them to be very comfortable in both applications. I have a B17 Special on my training bike and I find it to be rather too wide. General advice is that the B17 is more intended for touring applications where you are more upright whilst the Pro is intended for more 'racy' applications. I know that a Swift would be too narrow for me.
As ever, which you find the most comfortable is a very personal thing but whatever you choose don't undertake a 500 mile trip until you have give the saddle a chance to break in!"an original thinker… the intellectual heir of Galileo and Einstein… suspicious of orthodoxy - any orthodoxy… He relishes all forms of ontological argument": jane90.0 -
As BenderRodriguez suggests, you need to work out which Brooks might work for you in your given application/setup.
There are many people, even in my world of long-distance cycling, who detest Brooks - so do not automatically assume they are right for long rides.
You need to find the right saddle and set it up right. That is an expensive gamble with Brooks these days (I dare not even look how much my Swift Titanium would cost these days).
Team Pro and Swift work well on road bike setups. B17s are more tailored towards an upright position. I use Swifts on 2 road bikes and B17 Specials on the Brompton and tandem (tandem very much tailored to touring with an upright position).
You will see a lot of Brooks saddles in Audax world - we get the piss taken out of us for it (and the beards, mudguards and Caradice). But, they must be doing something right as we can all sit on them for 400km a day. Primarily Swifts and Team Pros - some people will use B17s, but not that many.
Personally, I have never had to wait for a Brooks to break in - small adjustments in the saddle position have sorted out any discomfort.0 -
Brooks Cambium and a Swift Ti on a couple of my bikes. What Marcusjb says is only partly correct - they are expensive to buy, but the second hand market is normally pretty robust, so even if you don't get along with it, the financial loss can be mitigated!http://www.georgesfoundation.org
http://100hillsforgeorge.blogspot.com/
http://www.12on12in12.blogspot.co.uk/0 -
mroli wrote:Brooks Cambium and a Swift Ti on a couple of my bikes. What Marcusjb says is only partly correct - they are expensive to buy, but the second hand market is normally pretty robust, so even if you don't get along with it, the financial loss can be mitigated!
Indeed... people on Ebay sell their old bangers with crevasses in the leather for 50 quid or soleft the forum March 20230 -
Marcus just about covers all of it :-)jc0
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Does one ever get numb bits with a Brooks?Pegoretti
Colnago
Cervelo
Campagnolo0 -
How do they fare in the wet? You don't have to put those horrible covers on do you?0
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Provided you treat it well with proofide (top and bottom), it will be fine whilst you are riding on it (there will be a big lump of meat on top of it). Proofide on the bottom will help if you don't have mudguards.
I don't worry about covering mine unless I leaving the bike for a number of hours (to stop for a sleep or whatever ) and it is raining hard - then I cover it in a plastic bag (I use a dominos pizza one and the bag has performed very well for a couple of seasons). If it is just for a few minutes, I don't worry.
Don't over do reapplication of proofide though. Once, maybe twice a year tops (and that is on a saddle that does 10000km a year in all weather).0 -
Got myself a Spa Aire last year and have been getting on ok with it. Similar to a Brooks Swallow but a third of the price. These styles of saddle suit a modern road bike better than the deep sided saddles like the B17 and Swift do IMO.0
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thegibdog wrote:Got myself a Spa Aire last year and have been getting on ok with it. Similar to a Brooks Swallow but a third of the price. These styles of saddle suit a modern road bike better than the deep sided saddles like the B17 and Swift do IMO.
Do you have to or do you treat it with anything like Brooks do with Proofide?0 -
Yeah, I just used some Lord Sheraton Leather Balsam as we happened to have some in the house.DM222 wrote:
Do you have to or do you treat it with anything like Brooks do with Proofide?thegibdog wrote:Got myself a Spa Aire last year and have been getting on ok with it. Similar to a Brooks Swallow but a third of the price. These styles of saddle suit a modern road bike better than the deep sided saddles like the B17 and Swift do IMO.0 -
thegibdog wrote:
Yeah, I just used some Lord Sheraton Leather Balsam as we happened to have some in the house.DM222 wrote:
Do you have to or do you treat it with anything like Brooks do with Proofide?thegibdog wrote:Got myself a Spa Aire last year and have been getting on ok with it. Similar to a Brooks Swallow but a third of the price. These styles of saddle suit a modern road bike better than the deep sided saddles like the B17 and Swift do IMO.
So do Spa recommend proofing it like Brooks or is it something you've just decided to do yourself?0 -
Here's a good website describing the differences of various Brooks and other leather saddles, just scroll down the page. http://swhs.home.xs4all.nl/fiets/tests/ ... tml#Brooks0
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I'd like a Brooks but the Spa seems a no brainier at £45!0
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I have a B17 special on my road bike*. It is a thing of beauty; mellow honey leather, big hand-beaten copper rivets and copper plated rails. It looks a bit inconcruous on a modern road bike, and it weighs half a kilo, but it is sublimely comfortable.
* I have 2 road bikes and put the Brooks on the one that's in most frequent use; it's on the alu wet weather bike at the moment but will be going on the CR1 come the summer. One day I'll buy a second one to save all the swapping malarkey.0 -
Yeah, I think Spa recommend it. It's a leather saddle so it needs a bit of looking after.DM222 wrote:So do Spa recommend proofing it like Brooks or is it something you've just decided to do yourself?0
