A Brooks saddle leaves the factory as a slab of bare leather stretched over two steel rails. Ride it for a hundred hours and it stops being a part. It becomes a mould of you.
The B17 has been made in England since 1866. One piece of thick vegetable-tanned hide sits on a steel frame, pulled taut by a single bolt at the nose. There is no foam to pack down and no gel to split. The leather flexes like a hammock and slowly takes the shape of the rider above it. When it loosens after a few thousand kilometres, you turn the tension bolt a quarter and it sits firm again. A tin of Proofide feeds the hide twice a year. Brooks sells the bolt, the bag loops and the hide as loose parts and guarantees the saddle for ten years.
A stock saddle is twenty-odd euro of foam under a stapled cover. On a daily commute the foam packs flat and the cover cracks within two or three years. You buy another, and another. The Brooks costs 116,95 euro once at Mantel. Care is a tin of Proofide at a few euro a year. A used B17 still sells for forty to eighty euro on Marktplaats, so a decade of riding lands cheaper than a foam saddle you keep replacing and binning.
| Brooks B17 | Stock foam saddle | |
|---|---|---|
| New price | 116,95 euro | 20 to 30 euro |
| Care | Proofide, a few euro a year | none |
| Over 10 years | one saddle, resells 40 to 80 euro | 3 to 4 saddles |
| End of life | patinated, still sells | landfill |
Verdict: buy the one saddle that moulds to your weight and still sells second-hand ten years on.