Yeah, I tried Brooks-style saddle (an Ideale, the French Brooks) for a couple of years. Carrying around plastic bags, massaging it with exotic oils and waxes, cleaning the mold and mildew off of it, towards the end of life tightening that nut...

I'm just glad the Charge Spoon works for me and they're only $28.
SDG Belair is another one of my favorites, for a little more money usually.

Is there a Brooks thread somewhere? The Brooks H8Rs need a place to vent.

...Saddle that works for me: Performance Forte (house brand) Classic model.
It has one of those cutout things in the taint area that relieves pressure on your scranus.

...Helment that I use is a Bell Variant, but any of the Bell helments with the three point
suspension system inside (similar to a hard hat, with a rear adjustment wheel) ought to do.

Buy extra helment pad liners, so you can rinse or wash them and let them dry while you rotate them.

...back in ancient times, when they first came out with those Avocet saddles with plastic shells, leather covers, and high density foam padding,
it didn't take me long to realize that i preferred a consistent, repeatable performance result to the prior generation of decent all leather saddles.

rekmeyata,

I ride on three bicycles, my Rivendell Rambouillet, a Trek 1420 and my Rans Stratus recumbent. It is the Rambouillet which has the Brooks saddle on it, and because I share my ride time mostly between the two (Rambouillet and Startus), it took a year.

I used a baseball cap under my Nutcase helmet today, and had a great and comfortable ride too. The Nutcase helmet (a hard shell helmet) has an small open spot on top for the foam liner so the button doesn't press down on my head.

John

I seriously doubt if the couple of Brooks naysayers actually ever owned one. Ancient times? Funny there are pro riders using leather saddles on their training rides to this day. Messaging it with exotic oils and waxes? that was your problem you used oil. After the first 1,000 miles it was less comfortable? Because you didn't follow the directions and tighten the spanner after break in. There is a reason why there are more Brooks saddles on touring bikes than any other saddle; of course a person does have to pick the right Brooks saddle for the specific type of bicycle they're going to put it on, and of course there is no such thing as one perfect saddle for all people that's why there are other types of saddles that people who tour use because what works for one person may not work for another.

...classic Yeah, bud, I never owned one. I think maybe I've had a dozen, and still have maybe five or six.

For what they are, they are both overpriced and overhyped. The fact that there are some guys who have
Brooks saddles that they like notwithstanding, this appears to be your argument approach to everything. #gmafb

The trouble with the Brooks-O-philes is that they have found the right saddle for them and assume that it must therefore be the right saddle for everyone else. I personally have always wanted to be a Brooks-O-phile but spent decades trying them without success. Eventually I determined that in order to make them work for me, my handlebars simply have to be higher than the saddle. It took a neck injury for me to discover that.

I now use Brooks on every bike with the bars higher than the saddle, which is most of them. I guess I'm still not a true Brooks-O-phile, though, because I am successfully resisting the urge to run around telling everyone that the only way a Brooks saddle can be comfortable is if you position it lower than the handlebars.

Oh, and a PS: I have definitely noticed that Brooks quality control has slipped over the decades. What used to be a very consistent product is now hit-and-miss. I think that explains, at least partly, why results are so mixed these days. A new buyer may well be advised to choose from the "select" line, which are apparently made the way they were decades ago, as opposed to the willy-nilly leather selection currently in use for their regular line.

Since this thread has be hi-jacked to Brooks saddles, I have been pondering this. I have come to the conclusion that setting on Brooks saddles or any other DF saddle has squeezed the anti helmet posters brains into a false sense of security about not wearing a helmet. They should ride a recumbent for a while and let blood back into their brains, then they would see the light about wearing a helmet.

You have that a bit wrong: those riding real bicycles think more clearly, their head receiving a continuous cooling stream to avoid overheating, especially if they are not wearing a helmet, which is why they may choose Brooks saddles; those riding clown bikes sit on their brain, causing overheated wrong-thinking, especially those who also have a helmet up their ass along with their head.

MHLs are not the subject of this thread, but I'll share this good news here.
If I start this in its own thread, it will likely get swept up and dumped in here, anyway.

It appears that we might finally make some headway on getting rid of Dallas' all-age helmet law.
Dallas Now Has a Bike Task Force, and It's Hellbent on Killing the Helmet Law

Good, sounds like the realize the problems of combining a bike-share program with a MHL: "Kingston expects the helmet rule to be gone by the end of the year, right before the city gets a respectably sized bike share program."

mcon
Does it bother you that "clown" bikes as you call them hold all of the cycling speed records? BTW I bet the riders of thse record setting bikes were wearing a helmet during their rides.

BTW I like to slow down and ride with DF riders during thunder storms. Perched way up in the air they make good lightening rods. They make us modern bike riders safe.

The People of Recumbent Cycling

Your approach seems to be a jackash toward everything, so I guess we're twins.

Don't get all in a kerfluffle -- my Birdy folder and Burley tandem are also solid residents of the clown bike class. Fatbikes are in there at the moment, too.

mcon

I would not be seen in a kerfuffle since it foreign made. Buy American.

I've never worn a bike helmet .....

...can you say kerfluffle here ? I thought it was censored ?

You're just jealous cuz Brooks doesn't make a leather-strapped lawn chair for your 'bent.

Even DH? Wow! I would have expected that a recumbent would be slower on mountain trails but guess I was wrong...

What about climbing?

Lester

Leather, leather, you are going to have the peta types jumping out of the bushes and jamming sticks in your spokes. Actually nice flexable nylon straps provide a very comfortable ride.

The ave cyclist should leap a whole century and ride a bent. Why be stuck riding an antique bike invented the the 1880s? Trains dont have firemen shoveling coal, and we no longer have kerosene lamps. Ride a modern bent, suffer no pain, and of course wear a helmet.

In Australia helmet wearing is COMPULSORY, no choice, you have to wear a helmet No matter Where you ride, On a designated bicycle path, or on a beach, or riding on a playing field (when not is use obviously) but You Have NO CHOICE!
I personally sweat severely under my helmet and last week almost Crashed because a river of sweat flowed first into my left eye and then my right as I was riding quickly across a road in quite heavy traffic where the cycleway crosses a major road!Last year I did crash from my helmet as My doctor changed my bloodpressure medication that had a side effect of making users Lose balance if their head got overheated! overbalanced into a chain wire fence!

Never have and probably never will. They are hot, uncomfortable and just plain dorky looking. Just another PIA that I don't need. Never been one to run with the "conformity" flock.

P.S. The same goes for Spandex too !!!