Originally Posted by
BobbyG
[...] Thursday's bike commute was pleasant. I was thinking about how to write it up when a couple miles from home. I did something stupid that I don't want to remember or really think about except to remember not to do it again. It didn't have to do with cycling per se but rather an encounter with a person. Unasked, I tried to be helpful and got involved in something that became complicated to extricate myself from. In the end I suffered no consequences but felt stupid and ashamed.
That was sure a lot of words just to still be vague!
Originally Posted by
Tundra_Man
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The other night when I was waxing the chain on my road bike I notice my Brooks saddle (a B17 narrow) has gotten noticeably lopsided and saggy. I tried adjusting the tensioning bolt, but it made no difference. So it looks like I may be saddle shopping. I have two Brooks saddles on two different bikes, and frankly I'm not overly happy with them. I've got more than 10k miles on both, but neither one has gotten any more comfortable than when they were brand new.
I had the tensioning bolt break on my road bike saddle about a year after I bought it six years ago. I contacted Brooks to see if they would send me a replacement bolt under warranty. They refused, and insisted I ship the entire saddle back to the UK for warranty work. The price of shipping back and forth was half what the saddle cost, plus I'd be without a seat on my bike for weeks. I went down to Ace hardware and cobbled together a makeshift tensioning bolt for less than $1. In any event, I doubt I'm going to buy another Brooks.
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Try a Selle Anatomica X-2 this time:
https://selleanatomica.com/products/...=7644358508574
I bought one and it's my favorite saddle. I have it on my endurance road bike. It has about 6,000 miles on it so far.
Then fortuitously a year later, a buddy in my coffee riders group gave me the original model X saddle, which I put on my gravel bike. It's almost as good as the X-2. It's tensioning bracket broke on me in 2025. I was surprised to see it was cast aluminum. I reached out to Selle and ordered a set of rivets and the hardware to fix the saddle, and had them within a week. They offered to fix it free and ship it back if I sent it in, (US address) but I fixed it myself. The replacement tensioning part was stamped steel, so I don't think it'll break again.
The X-2 was more supple out of the box than my Brooks after several thousand miles, and it got even more comfortable. Sounds like Brooks is not bending over backwards to satisfy its customers outside the UK. Same mistake Brompton is busy making.