Brooks saddle
Mar. 31st, 2008 07:54 pm
I had my first ride on the Brooks today. The legendary hardness of the saddle wasn't that big a deal to me; I could feel it starting to give a bit in the sit bone region by the end of the 21 miles of my ride.
There were two problems; one, due to the spring suspension, it's probably about 2" taller than my old saddle and I didn't drop the post on the way in. Two, the darn thing is slippery, and I had it set at the same angle as before. Combined, the two meant that on the way in I was having to push myself back in the seat constantly. As a result both my arms and my legs got pretty tired by the end of the ride. Also since I was sliding forwards constantly on the way in due to these factors, I was feeling it in the perineum several times. No problems after adjustment.
I tipped it back one notch and dropped it an inch or so, and the ride back was much nicer.
It took me several weeks when I first started riding to figure out how to set the seat how I liked it. I've been riding for years with the post at minimum insertion (if I buy another post it'll be a longer one) so it's nice to be able to slide the post down a bit farther.
The funny thing is when I looked for advice on how to treat it, I found everything from "Don't do anything; the RIGHT way to break it in is to sweat into it for 2000 miles!" to, well, just about any leather conditioner that you're likely to find at a tack or motorcycle shop. And you can find someone who says that any of those treatments will ruin the saddle too. All except for the Proofide that Brooks sells. I also saw a couple of people who have been riding them for 25 years and never put a damn thing on them.
Personally I'm kind of inclined to try some Sno-Seal at some point, because I WILL be riding it in the rain, guaranteed, and waterproofing seems like a good idea. And I know people who have 20 year old boots they've treated with Sno-Seal and they're still in great shape. Granted, the stresses on a bike saddle are different than boots or horse saddles, but enough people seem to like Sno-Seal to think it's worth a try, at least once a year. I mean, it's mainly beeswax, and there's beeswax in Proofide, so it can't be that bad.
[EDIT] I just went out to the garage to pick up a few thingsin my quest to make it at least 0.0001% cleaner every day, and noticed that with the seat post down, the lower tail light (a Cateye TL-1000 10-LED light) is completely obscured by the tool bag. So I scrounged up a hunk of steel and made a bracket to mount it on the rear of the rack. Just as well, it was barely visible anyway. The upper light (a Planet Bike Superflash) is fully visible. I like to have them both running though.