njkayaker

????

(How water repellents work for thin Goretex-like membranes might not be the same. And even those kinds of membranes have low limits for "breathability".)

xenologer

Have a counterproposal for you;

Take nice road saddles, but instead of building them from carbon fiber, titanium rails, etc. build them with steel rails, plastic parts, vinyl coverings.
Then you have a product that is cheap, but highly functional and comfortable.

ie im sick of the fact that the only cheap saddles are the Bell branded cruiser couch things... want something narrow that doesn't chafe when doing serious riding, yet doesnt cost an arm+leg

for some reason the market goes; expensive and narrow saddle, or cheap and wide-a$$ saddle. Fill in the niche of cheap and narrow and you win.

bluefoxicy

I don't own a microwave, because they're garbage. I have a toaster oven.

I use a gas stove.

I have a lot of cast iron, including a Wok.

I use a clay pot (stoneware) to make rice, not a rice cooker.

I have a bamboo board here with a couple turned wood bowls full of Yunzi stones. I'm eventually going to buy a proper Goban, hand-carved with a chisel and with the grid hand-laid using a Katana, the traditional method.

I eat this stuff called "Chicken" and "Beef," rather than the meat amalgam things they serve as food. Also "Cheese," which is outmodded by "Processed vegetable oil cheese-like product."

I learn algebra by doing algebra manually (modern methods center heavily around calculators and computer programs, and I've had many people argue that math will never be important without a computer within reach in the modern world), and I have (and advocate the use of) a Japanese Soroban for the teaching of Arithmetic, as continuous use makes operation with numbers second nature by programming your brain to understand numeric operations as a spatial process (your brain really, really sucks at numbers).

I also sleep in two segments, 9:00-1am, 3am-6:30am. This produces a median break that allows the mind and body to recover better, and in fact I can shorten the complete sleep cycle and get much better rest than any single consolidated sleep length. This is also the pattern humans naturally follow when not trying to organize their lives around society.

Lots of outmodded stuff is better. We have a lot of stuff that we think is better because it's cheaper to make, easier to mass produce, and more consistent (every one is identical to every other one). This is the consumerist society selling you a lie. They want you to buy something that takes no thought (EASIER!), but it gets only fixed results (i.e. you can't do anything amazing with it).

ScarcelyAware

You could shoot to please the vegan/veggie crowd who WOULD try a brooks but don't because it's made of leather.

ScarcelyAware

By the way, THIS!

Also, xenologer, if you're actually in the market for cheap/narrow/light, I'd look at the Forte Pro SL saddle from Performance. That's if you consider $49.99 cheap.

Machka 

Most saddles aren't all that expensive.

Shimagnolo

I paid $50 for my last saddle;
A classic Selle Italia Flite, used but like new, from eBay.

meanwhile

The problem with Goretex was the addition of a PU layer. (Maybe the newer varieties have dropped this.) Waterproofs that lack this like Event or Pertex treated with DWR can breathe very well. If you treat denim with a DWR Nikwax it will keep off a lot of rain - and, yes, will be breathable than it was before. Because breathability comes from the holes between fibres, which water retained from fibres can clog. If the fibres are made water repellent, this no longer happens. The same thing applies to leather.

What can reduce the breathability of leather is the wrong polish - the silicon based stuff.

Anyway, I can confirm: using Nikwax doesn't reduce breathability and can keep rain off very well. And Event breathes superbly as long as the air around it isn't saturated with water, and Paramo goes on breathing under all conditions. I can cycle hard in Paramo in pouring rain and not get any significant "boil in the bag" - but the windproofing is perfect.

njkayaker

Yes, I know all that. I am still skeptical that there is any appreciable "breathing" going on with the thick piece of leather that is a Brook saddle. (And these other examples don't appear to really say anything about the breathablity of leather as it used in Brooks saddles.)

(Just to be clear, I'm not making any sort of criticism of Brook saddles.)

meanwhile

I can't comment on that directly as I haven't used a Brooks. I can say that my Altberg boots are made of water repellent leather almost 3mm thick. This is probably about as thick as the leather on a Brooks, plus they have a lining. And they breathe extremely well - and they're damn waterproof.

Otoh, does your ass need to breathe through the saddle? I'm sceptical. Firstly, I've never had a problem with riding a non-leather saddle. Secondly, my butt isn't that big a sweater, and most of it isn't covered by the saddle.