staehpj1

Not sure why there are two of these threads. Since this one seems like it might be more current I will post what I said on the other thread:
I'd suggest that you count in some more random place. It seems that some locations like "the fulley loaded touring picture thingey" and this forum have a strong bias to the Brooks saddle that isn't necessarily born out on the road at least in the US.

You might get a very different result if you surveyed folks who are posting pictures of their tours rather than their bikes. One way to do that is to use the random "serendipity" view on crazyguyonabike.com. Numbers will vary depending on how large a sample you do and the luck of the draw. I know that when I did a count at one time in the past the number of Brooks saddles among the recognizable saddles was pretty small. This fits with what I saw on the road while riding the TA, which was the only tour I did where I met lots of other bike tourists.

Reading the forum you get the idea that everyone uses Brooks saddles, Tubus racks, and Ortleib panniers. On the road all three were present, but relatively rare in my observations. I think that is because these products have a loyal following that tend to oversell them in any discussion and like to post pictures of the bikes that they are very proud of. On one hand I hardly saw any Brooks saddles the entire summer on the TA despite the fact that we met other cyclist pretty much every day and on the other hand there are what three? four? different threads about Brooks saddles going at once here.