When I talked to cycling students about saddles and used my Brooks B17 as an example, I always explained that the Brooks had its own built-in suspension.

While the surface is hard, the flex in it, as the wings flare out, can be demonstrated by pressing down on the centre part of the leather. I said that was something other saddles generally couldn't do because once that foam (or silicon or whatever) compressed to the plastic former underneath, that was it -- no more suspension give left.

The amount of pressure we can apply with our hands or fingers also is miniscule compared with the weights of our bodies on that particular surface area. It really doesn't take long to demonstrate why Brooks saddles work so well.

But the same press-down method can show a crook Brooks with leather that has softened too much. I have one like that which I recovered from a really old, discarded bike, and the wings flare out far too easily... that's when lacing comes to the fore.

Foam/gel saddles also have a terrible habit of wearing out where the material collapses and sometimes it's almost impossible to find the same model for a replacement, or something similar. With Brooks, there are no problems because the wearing out takes such a long time and there are always replacements.

Yeah... I'm a Brooks fan, although I do ride to work on an ordinary saddle recovered from a dump bike.