buying a used brooks
 

My buddy has a brooks B.17N he is thinking of selling to buy a swallow. He has had this saddle for close to two years, and has around 1200+ miles on it. I'm sure is been broken in for his butt. If I would buy it, woulkd I be able to brake it in to fit me? What would you guys do. He's selling it for 50$, so would you buy this one, or just buy new.

A new B17N goes for about $60, so it's not much of a savings.

I'd say buy new and then you'd be 100% sure it'd be broken in to your anatomy.

The B17N is pretty narrow, so you definitely want to have a 'test period' to see if the seat width actually fits you. If it does, and you like it enough to drop $50 on it, it will sooner or later conform to your shape. It's not like he has three cheeks or anything (or DOES he?) so the pattern on the seat is going to be fairly close to begin with.

Years ago, I was having trouble breaking in my Brooks Pro. A friend who bike commuted and had a Brooks offered to commute on it for about 2 weeks rather than me trying to do 50 miles all at once. It worked fine. I'm sure that there were differences in anatomy but it "softened" it enough for me to take it over.

Unfortunately, it succumbed to a collision with a pickup truck and I've never been able to break in another altho, the discussions about all these Brooks makes me want to give it another shot since that old saddle was more comfortable than others I keep trying.

I always thought the fun of the brooks was buying a new one and riding it for like a bazillion years and then you can say YOU broke it in, but I dunno....plus 50 bucks for a two year old saddle isn't that great of a deal.

He was on to something. I rode a century after installing my B17N....lots of pain, yet little break-in was noticeable. I've now started commuting 20 miles/day for two weeks and have been noticing more break-in and a bit more comfort. Definitely break these things in in small increments to begin with.

"A new B17N goes for about $60, so it's not much of a savings."

Where can you get a B17N for $60 new? Thats the B17 (standard) price. All the Narrows I've found are ~$25 more.

Steve

Nashbar has them for $60 right now.

Unless I'm missing something, that's their price for a standard B17 not the narrow B17N.

Steve