Originally Posted by late
Yeah,
what will work for you is anybody's guess. The B17 Champion Special is one of the most comfortable saddles ever made. It is the only saddle that seemed to disappear.
I think that salesman was lying to you. Leather gives, numbness is a problem you get with hard saddles.
He could have been lying but I tend to think that he wasn't in this case. He described that it was very comfortable where his sit bones contacted the saddle but as he put more miles on the saddle the sitbone area continued to sink in more causing the center and front part to create pressure on the perennial nerve. After reading some other posts about the Brooks saddles it sounds like it may have been broken in wrong or maybe wasn't taken care of properly. On the other hand it may just not have been the best saddle for him.
I put 3000 miles on a Fizik Aliante saddle on my Litespeed including two century rides. When I describe to other Aliante fans that it still causes me to have some numbness they just can't believe me. The saddle has a really good 4.63 out of 5 rating but I am still having some issues with it. I'm tempted to try the Brooks but I think I'm still going to do some more research first. My handle bars are currently at saddle height so I guess it would be a tossup between a sprung and an unsprung saddle.