Did I get taken or did I luck out?
 

I bought a Brooks saddle today. My second one. To go on my Surly Crosscheck. If I could replace the chairs in my house with B-17 Standards, I would.

The shop where I bought it builds custom frames. The last black B-17 they had was sitting on their fit bike. The guy said that the saddle had only about 15 minutes of use. It still had the tags on it.

But when I got it home, it had noticably more flex than my B-17 with about 200 fixed gear miles on it.

So am I actually the beneficiary of a "pre-softened" Brooks saddle or a "used" one. Not that I care too much, it's still as comfortable as my other Brooks and more comfortable than any other saddle I've owned.

Depends on how much you paid I suppose. ;)

They may have adjusted the tensioner to make the seat more comfortable for people test riding it...

There is a lot of variability in the saddles coming off the shelf.

If it is used, it'll have a butt print on it. Does it have a butt print?

I've noticed some B17s are much stiffer out of the box than others. Chalk it up to variability in cows. I think the stiff ones are better in the long run, but they take a lot longer to break in.

The presoftened ones are marked as such. If it doesn't look worn at all, you probably just got a thin skinned cow.

Was this at Rex's shop?