Wilfred Laurier

my early twenties neighbor has a brooks on his campy equipped racer

the almost complete lack of leather saddles
and the prevalence of racing style plastic and ti saddles
on young peoples bikes
is more an indicator of choosing style over function
than people using books saddles
imho

fietsbob

Or just leaving the saddle on that came with the bike from the shop, because it was OK with them.

Rare is the new bike sold as It came out of the shipping carton, included with a Brooks leather Saddle..



then there are the gram counters, a leather saddle weighs more than a carbon fiber one.



you asked your neighbor where they bought their saddle?
I expect it was a separate purchase.

SmallFront

In my experience, most people keep the saddle the bike came with until it is ripped (and a lot come with lower tier Brooks saddles - at least here in Northern Europe). But then again, most aren't as geeky as people on these boards (me included, of course).

chaadster

Ha! Aren't you right! I'd not thought about those in all this...But the Brooks crowd isn't migrating, is it?

chaadster

Haha! Well, ponying up $150 for a Brooks is not like coming up with $250k for a Ferrari, is it?! One doesn't need a successful career to afford a bike seat, thank god.

MEversbergII

I am intending to get my first Brooks (and upright bike suitable for it) this spring, wherein I'll be about 26.

I don't understand why, if I like one end of the spectrum (leather saddles like in the old days) I am required by some kind of cultural law to dislike the other end of the spectrum (carbon shingles).

Every thing can have appeal. Use reason.

I wouldn't put a Brooks on my alu drop bar road bike because it would be at odds with the ascetics, but that's just me.

M.

ricebowl

incorrect, at least about brooks...

wahoonc

I rode Brooks saddles in the 1970's (Wright's and Ideale too) still riding Brooks today, if it ain't broke it don't need fixing. When someone gives me a saddle that is more comfortable than my very comfortable Brooks I will consider switching, however that has yet to happen. FWIW I have 7 or 8 Brooks equipped bikes.

Aaron

Bandera

OP: Do you currently own and ride a Brooks saddle or have you in the past?

-Bandera

UnfilteredDregs

Probably not... Brooks' is beautiful stuff btw...but it's great to see the design modernized and moving forward. I'm really looking forward to getting some miles in on the Kurve shortly...

Machka 

That is, of course, what he intended when he started this thread.

Machka 

How young?

I got my first Brooks when I was 37 ... on the advice of several friends, one of whom had been riding Brooks for a while and he was 32.

SmallFront

You are missing the point: You compared the age of people buying Brooks to people buying Porsches, the car you think is a flawed design. I pointed out that the age of people buying Porsches has little to do with being old, but more to do with having the money to buy one. I am not saying that you need to have that kind of money to buy a saddle, but rather that you can't put too much into the average age of a buyer of an expensive super car, other than because it is very expensive, very few young people will have the means to buy such a car.

chaadster

Yes, in the past. My first road bike, a hand-me-down Hercules from my father, was equipped with one. But why do you ask?

chaadster

You're confounding my comments with FrenchFit's.

You're explanation didn't do anything to clarify your point for me, so I'll just add that perception is important; maybe the reason the young folk don't buy Brooks' saddles even though they could afford one is because they see them as something for geezers. That, or perhaps they see them as low-tech, poorly suited, alternatives to saddles better suited to their needs and wants.

chaadster

I agree on both counts, and came quite close to getting a Kurve Chameleon myself, but wound up going with SMP's Dynamic, which I adore. I'd still love to try one, though.

Bandera

To find out if you have direct experience in using the subject of your post.
It's not unknown to find that folk on the inter-web post opinions about kit that they have never used, shocking but true.

-Bandera

bikemig 

I bought a brooks in the 80s, broke it in, and sold it. Nothing wrong with the saddle but I liked the selle italia turbo better. That was my favorite all time saddle. Fast forward 30 years and I'm starting to dig Brooks saddles partly for the style and partly for the comfort. They just look right on a bike and they are comfortable. I just picked up a selle anatomica for my drop bar mtb conversion. I've heard great things about it and took advantage of the sale to pick one up.

SmallFront

Only in an unimportant sense: FrenchFit compared the age of owners of Brooks saddles with the age of Porsche owners. I responded to that. You then responded with a post saying that a Brooks saddle wasn't as expensive as a supercar, to which I explained why I responded in the first place: That one couldn't compare them just because it happens to be older persons driving them both. If I at some point confused you and FrenchFirst, so be it, but I doubt it. You were the one comparing the "flawed" design of the Porsche with the "flawed" design of the Brooks.

If it did nothing to clarify my point to you, that is your loss. Sometimes people are willingly ignoring things. There is nothing I can do to alleviate problems on your end with the reception.

As for image; Yes, perhaps younger people perceive it to be for "geezers", but that too is their problem. If you or the young people see them as "low-tech, poorly suited, alternatives", then again that is their problem. What's your point? That because a group of people (which seems to be mostly you) is poorly informed and/or care mostly about image, then therefore the reality is what it is according to that group (or rather, you who claim to speak on behalf of them)?

chaadster

Sure, but remember, this is not a thread about that, really; it's about exploring the commonalities between the development of the 911 and Brooks saddles, and one doesn't need first hand experience of either to do that, I don't think.

chaadster

My point was only that you wrongly attributed comments to me that I did not make, but which someone else did. Otherwise, I was proposing a possible context within which to understand FrenchFit's comments. I did not mean to speak for FrenchFit, but since you guys seemed to be talking past each other, I thought suggesting another angle from which to consider things might be helpful; turns out you're not interested that.

Bandera

If you've never driven a 911 or put miles on a Brooks saddle you wouldn't know what you were posting about.
One either has direct experience of a product or not, pretty simple.

The last 911 that I drove was a '72 911E. I found it to be a significant improvement in every way over the 356B and not particularly flawed, idiosyncratic surely. Modern 911s are beyond my ken but I'd love to give one a run on the Hill Country roads I drive in my roadster. Having never driven one I have no opinion on their driving qualities beyond a pure guess that "pretty nice" would be accurate, but don't quote me.

The only Brooks saddle on my bikes "lately", a B-72 of a certain age, was retired and replaced with the B-17 "Aged" model on my town bike. After only a few miles on the new Brooks I was certain that it met my requirements quite well, no big surprise.


Any serious comparison of the development process of items as different as a simple bicycle seat and a complex sports car strikes me as so nebulous as to be meaningless. Apple are more comparable to oranges.

-Bandera

chaadster

I don't share that perspective. I mean, if a NASA engineer or an F1 engineer, for example, can help build a space shuttle or a race car yet never pilot one, I still think they are pretty qualified to speak about them! No, they wouldn't be the go-to guys for input on what it's like to pilot one, but in the same sense, where not here talking about what it's like to sit on a Brooks or in a 911, either.

Bandera

How many angels can dance on the rivet of a Pro or the shifter knob of a Carrera do you think?

-Bandera

Bandrada

I simply don't have the patience or the ass to break one in.