In my opinion these "brooks versus everything else" saddle questions miss the point. There is a series of questions at play.

The most basic question is: hard surface or upholstered?

Either way, you can then ask what's the best material: leather, plastic, or other; but note, a hard leather saddle (such as Brooks) is a fundamentally different beast than an upholstered leather saddle (of which there are many, I don't know what they are, because they don't interest me)

Either way, you can also ask what's the best frame: steel, aluminum, titanium; with springs, or without; and so on.

And then there's questions of size (width) and shape (nose or noseless, flat or arched or grooved top, or a big hole cut in it, and so on.

And of course there are questions of quality.



In my opinion, a hard saddle is always better than a padded one, and of all the hard materials I've tried, leather is best. Unica used to make a hard rubber saddle called a Nitor, which became the Cinelli Unicanitor; those are really quite good but very hard to find now. Later plastic versions look the same but are pretty terrible.

Steel or titanium frames seem best; I have heard aluminum framed saddles are very uncomfortable.

As for the shape, the standard leather saddle shapes have been around for over a century, and I think Brooks and other manufacturers would be wise to consider updating the shapes. I've remade a couple leather saddles so they have a groove down the center, and it's definitely a workable idea, but I don't think I've mastered the technique yet.

As for the quality, there seems to be general agreement that Brooks' current offerings are not up to the quality level of what they were making 25+ years ago. I don't know why this is; it may even be intentional (you can sell more saddles if people replace them every 5,000 miles). There are many other manufacturers, or at least many other brands.

As for the shape, I prefer them pretty narrow, but this is really a matter of preference, based not so much on anatomy as riding style. If your handlebar is higher than the bar, you want a wider saddle. If lower, you want a narrow saddle.