Originally Posted by ollo_ollo

I have B17's in Honey, Black, Green and Maroon(cordovan). There are some really old Brooks out there that remain in very good shape.(1st pic is of a B15 off of a 1964 Schwinn Super Sport, now 52 years old & ridden by a series of 150# & under riders, so barely broken in)

The several regular models only took about 300-400 miles of riding from new to break in, but the Champion Specials, while fairly comfortable out of the box, took much longer. The Green one took over 2,000 miles.

Maroon looks very good on a blue bike. It is also possible to carefully carve, or in my case butcher, a B17 into a reasonable facsimile of the Swift. Mine has done about 12 years now without any sagging. Don