Anyone have any hints on speeding up the break-in process on a leather Brooks saddle?

When I was in the Navy, we'd take new leather shoes and soak them in boiling hot water and then put them on with thick socks which really cut down the break-in time and helped form them to our feet.

As a kid, playing baseball, I'd use leather oil and put a ball in a new glove, etc.

Anyone have a process for something for a Brooks saddle?

Most folks put them on bikes and ride them. I assume that's not in the plan so you'll need to experiment. Boiling it sounds like a good first step. Onions, carrots and potatoes.

LOL! I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

Does balsamic vinegar help?

Garlic too!

Darn it - this was honey brown before boiling it. Now what do I do?

Gonna need the ketchup or A1.

Boiling may have removed any conditioning oils and thus the leather may crack if ridden without reconditioning.

When I want to condition leather, keep it pliable, I use neatsfoot oil. Back in the day, my Redwing boots which called for regular oiling, I sometimes mixed some silicone oil in with the neatsfoot, it added some water repellency. Just using straight silicone oil (designed to waterproof shoes but doesn't work great), made it hard for the oil to penetrate after. So I mixed them.

My leathers that I really want to weatherproof, I'll apply SnoSeal (wax softened with mineral oil I think?), then gently heat in oven to melt in, then add more, until the leather is saturated.

I have an Ideal saddle very similar to Brooks, I drove cross-country with the bike on the roof in the winter, saddle covered with a bag but still got wet. After drying out it seemed hard, would crack if I rode it. So (if I remember correctly, this was over 20 years ago) I conditioned with neatsfoot oil, left it a day, then melted in the SnoSeal, and it seemed to do the trick. I don't know if SnoSeal alone would have been enough. Again, this is testing my memory. I think the above may be good advice to your similarly dried leather.

All of the above will darken the leather. Forget going back to honey brown unless perhaps saddle soap the whole thing (what I used to do with my old boots, were russet colored oil finish, before oiling, it removed the dirt and kept the original color), then use honey colored polish. But I think it will need more conditioning, and that means darker.

I’ve broken in lots of Brooks saddles, some are easier than others. A typical B17 will break in after a few weeks to a couple months, a Professional may never break in at all. I am currently breaking in a B17 Select (thicker leather), and after 4 months it’s mostly there.

You don’t have to boil your saddle to break it in. Install and adjust your saddle, then take a towel and soak it in hot water. Wring out the excess water, then wrap it around the saddle. Take a plastic grocery bag and use it to cover the towel and saddle, and tie it off at the bottom to seal it, and prevent any water from dripping onto your bike. Let the bike sit overnight, then go out and ride it the next day.

After the saddle has broken in somewhat, treat it with Proofhide or some other leather treatment to replace any oils which might have been displaced by the water.

Great ideas - thanks!

(the boiling was a joke - at least on my part)

OTOH, this gives me the idea of putting it over a pot of boiling water and then wrapping it as suggested.

Just ordered some neatsfoot oil from Amazon - thanks!

My only caution on the neatsfoot is that it could make the leather TOO soft. I'd welcome others' advice who have more experience with Brooks saddles.

Many people suggest doing anything to it other than riding about 1000 miles will damage or destroy the leather fibers and ruin the saddle.

This is the Sheldon Brown method: Link

Be aware that Neats foot oil will discolor the leather (not an issue if the saddle is black) and encourage mold growth (I found out the hard way).

The good news is that they are reasonably comfortable out of the box, so if you can live with it, riding is the least invasive and most reliable method.

Excellent info in the Sheldon Brown link, covers everything, including both plus and minus of neatsfoot oil. Perfect.

I've had some non-saddle leather stuff get the white mold on it from long storage, one was simply vegetable tanned instead of more toxic methods. In cases where I could, cleaning off the mold with damp sponge, let dry, then applying SnoSeal (mostly wax) totally sealed off air and the white mold did not recur. I couldn't do that on a nice leather jacket, so just wiped off the mold and put back in storage; If I ever pull it out again, I might investigate a countermeasure after having the jacket cleaned, as I'm sure it is fully covered in white mold on the inside of the leather underneath the satin lining.

What a fantastic article (no surprise from Sheldon Brown and very interesting tidbit about his wife and Gary Klein).

Not sure I’m up for 1000 miles of break-in. Ouch! So, I think I’ll try the neatsfoot oil.

The Selle Anatomical looks interesting as well.

Thank you for the thoughtful reply.

IME it's not the saddle which gets broken in, it's your butt. Your butt tissues have to get used to that low oxygen environment. Can take at least a couple months.

Maybe I need to make an office chair out of a seatpost so I can sit on the saddle while working (half serious)......

Amazing how useful kitchen tools are! (Thomas Keller would be horrified)

Hopefully this will speed up the break-in process.

Brooks saddle soaking in neatsfoot oil.

Uh..... doesn't Brooks give you any guidance? It's leather. If I was going to put anything on it, it'd be something with lanolin in it. Neat's-foot oil gives a lot of immediate results. But it also has long term consequences that sometimes aren't good.

I'm sure glad all I have to do with my saddle is nothing.

I wouldn’t think so, check the website of America’s Saddle Kitchen.

Several times I have found an article from Lon Haldeman on his best quick method for breaking in Brooks saddles for immediate use on a brevet ot other long ride.

Found it but can’t paste it grrrr!

Try googling “Lon’s Pactour Blog”. It makes a lot of basic sense and has no magic, softball bats, spells, salad dressing, or cooking. It does ask you to use mink oil, but the reference to the actual stuff is rather vague. You’d be surprised how many such products are on the Walmart website!

I hope Lon or someone who’s tried this would chime in.

Breaking In a Leather Saddle

I can't argue against his vast experience, but what hits me in the article is that he lists just about everything I've always heard that you should not do to a Brooks saddle.

I'm sort of wondering if I'm reading a article in the making that's being written for the "Onion" or some other parody site.

Curious as to why? I would expect a Brooks saddle to last.

Contraindicated. One starts with 30'/day. Do that for up to a month, depending on how it goes. Then gradually increase the time. Don't mess with the saddle. Anything you do reduces the lifespan. Just ride it. Come out of the saddle about every 15' to let the oxygen back in.

Back in my youth, I rode nothing but leather. There wasn't anything else suitable. I found that my butt would go to sleep after a couple hours, but not my tool. YMMV. The whole good thing about a hard saddle is that you DON"T sink in, so the area of flesh which needs to modify its oxygen requirements is limited, a good thing. That's why no serious rider uses a soft tractor saddle. Those who don't ride in the winter often have to break their butt in every year.

The need to break the butt in is thus the reason that newbies think they need a soft saddle.

The faster you break it it, the faster it will break down and you'll have to buy a new one. I used to use Sno-Seal boot wax on my Brooks Pro. It penetrates and waterproofs leather without breaking it down. If you're still bent on breaking it down, you might want to add some Adolph's meat tenderizer.

Selle Anatomica
(for future reference)