Originally Posted by
benajah
Ahh, number two is what I was referring to when other posters asked "what other things?".
i don't road tour much. Most of my tours are a bit more like bikepacking, and a lot of it is in the desert or prairie. I go into national forests and BLM land and spend my time exploring on fire roads, jeep trails, and the like. I can't use fenders because they tend to get trashed off road when I push my bike through heavy brush. I just go through them too quickly to be economically viable. Mostly sticks get jammed in them and the fenders bend while dislodging said stick.
while avoiding the sun by throwing a t shirt over the saddle when I leave my bike in hot sun is an alternative...that brings up the very reason for my post...in that I'm simply asking if there happens to be a synthetic material saddle on the market that can rival the Brooks in comfort, in order for me to be able to avoid concerns such as shading from sun, cleaning and drying a mud slathered wet saddle to apply wax, etc.
i can understand an answer as simple as "no". I'm as much a proponent of leather saddles as anyone here, but I only really know of two types of saddles, brooks, and the ass hatchet types I have on my race bikes.
There is no problem leaving leather out in the sun. I tour in the desert myself and I ride for maybe 5 to 7 hours a day. The other 12 hours of daylight, the saddle sits in the sun. My boots, meanwhile, are exposed to a full 12 hours of sun, as is the leather band on my hat and the leather that covers my hands and lower arms. That's right, my skin is living leather, just as the leather on the saddle and on my boots and the hat band is dead skin from an animal (either a cow or some kind of australian fish in the case of the hatband).
Seriously, the effect of sun on leather is to toughen and shrink it, while the effect of moisture is to soften it and allow it to stretch. In the case of something like boots, these effects offset one another. In the case of a saddle, stretching is what you want to avoid. So the more sun, the better. Just make sure you apply proofhide now and then to keep the leather from drying out, because then it will crack in the sun.