The Brooks B-17 Bicycle Saddle

If you grew up in the 60s or 70s you might remember how different bicycles were then. About the only thing they have in common with today's bikes is two wheels. One difference was the fact that bikes used to have leather saddles. If you were a kid, you probably had a simple and inexpensive bike and the saddle was a cheaply-made leather seat that cracked and split after you left it out in the rain once too often. For us kids, a padded plastic seat was actually more desirable than a leather saddle, and as we grew up in the 80s, we looked on the development of gel saddles as the obvious evolution of the bicycle seat.

Meanwhile, over in England, the Brooks company had been turning out high-quality leather bicycle saddles pretty much unchanged since the late 19th Century. I never heard of Brooks until I bought my first Raleigh in 1979. It was a green 5-speed with hand-painted gold pinstripes on the fenders, manufactured at the Nottingham factory in England. It had a Brooks saddle with springs under the seat, and I still remember how comfortable it was.

Now it's 2008 and everything Raleigh manufactures comes from China, including the saddles. However the Brooks Saddle Company is still hand-building leather saddles in the West Midlands of England. There has to be a reason why bicyclists continue to buy these saddles in the face of such brutal competition from Asian imports. The answer, in part, lies with the Brooks B-17 Saddle.

This simple, unsprung leather seat is Brooks' perfect saddle: the inspiration for countless essays, testimonials, product endorsements, and religious wars. What is it about a seat for a bicycle that can rouse such passions? I don't fully understand it yet, but I will. I just took delivery of one and have been riding it for three days.

This saddle is not soft and cushy like today's gel saddles. The first time you ride it, its hard shiny surface makes it seem like its slipping and sliding out from under you. It's not instantly comfortable like a gel seat. And here's the kicker: it doesn't ever get soft, no longer how long you ride it.

So why would something that is literally a pain in the *** hold such a devoted army of followers? I don't know yet, but I believe it has something to do with the fact that you earn the right to have a comfortable ride with a Brooks saddle. According to the overwhelming majority of things I've read about Brooks, after you break the saddle in, it becomes the most comfortable saddle in the world! Why? Because the saddle molds itself to the rider, making it the perfect match. (Some say you mold your backside to the saddle, but I digress.)

By enduring the pain and suffering of the break-in process, the rider shows himself worthy to join the ranks of Brooks owners. People treat these saddles like precious keepsakes. It's not unusual to find people who keep their Brooks for decades, transferring them from bicycle to bicycle. I read in one forum a guy's post where he said he had a Brooks on his bike and another Brooks in storage to protect himself against the company ever going out of business. People really love these things.

I'm still in the "ouchie" phase of Brooks ownership. This isn't the same springy comfort saddle of my youth, and I daresay I've got a few more miles on me than I did during my first Brooks encounter. But I think this B-17 saddle might have promise. I went for a ride on my old gel-seat saddle after a couple of days on the Brooks and the bike felt like a drunk on roller skates.

I still have some adjusting to do. Unlike the gel seat, there's one place and one place only where you can sit, and moving the saddle forwards and back tends to mess up the seating geometry. Writing about the best way to find the right tilt of the seat could fill a page. And the height of the seatpost has to be changed because the B-17 is not padded, so you sit lower on the bike. Every one of these adjustments affects the other ones, and the only way to test them is to ride after every minute change. It's going to be days before I get this thing dialed in just right. I'll post updates from time to time.