Originally Posted by olly708

I put a brand new honey Brooks Professional on a bike at the start of a year long bicycle tour. Some comedian at Brooks had stamped "Pre-softened" into the leather. What a joker - the thing was like iron. For two weeks it was as painful as a painful thing. Riding down the west coast of the S. Island of New Zealand I came across a bushman's store that sold lots of furry items made from possum skin - including a possum skin bicycle seat cover. Before anyone gets all sniffy about wildlife conservation - I should add that possums in NZ are a real menace and are widely considered a real environmental pest. They have no natural predators and breed worse than rabbits, chomping their way through thousands of tons of forest every night. The government pays people to control them. So, I bought a two inch thick possum skin seat cover and used it for the next few weeks. On occasion I would ride into a town, stop outside a cafe where there were attractive young ladies eating, get off my bike and say "Sshhh" and then point at the saddle and whisper "he's sleeping". Great icebreaker and always got a laugh.

The dead possum was a wonderful cushion and within a few hundred miles the Brooks was as comfortable as an old sofa. Now that it's properly softened up I wouldn't trade it for the world and it will easily outlast me. I wax the top surface with tan boot polish and feed the underside with boiled linseed oil from time to time. Very few products in this world are still made in exactly the same way as they were 100 years ago. Persevere with a Brooks and you'll never want another saddle.