Brooks B-17 Narrow : let's give them something to smug about

Yet another useful bike part review from me, a useful bike part user (as opposed to useful bike part sales person). The usual caveats apply:

• I am not employed by Brooks
• I bought this with my own money
• I ride bikes for fun, fitness, and transport
• I feel free to say what I like and what I don't like about something
• I don't care what anyone else thinks (that is a good thing in a review...)

With that in mind, here is what I think of the Brooks B-17 Narrow bicycle saddle.

Like always, I like to start my bike part reviews with a bit of history explaining why I am using the bike part in question. Currently, I have six bicycles in my collection. Two of them are old approaching vintage race bikes which do not really get ridden. One is my old hard tail mountain bike which gets some use. One is my old cyclocross bicycle which has been reborn, well after the fad was over, as a single speed (that is ok, I was riding a cyclocross bike on gravel and around the city long before the cyclocross bike fad started, so it cancels out...). One is my brand new cyclocross bicycle. And one is my inexpensive mountain bike commuter bike.

While I do like pretty bicycles, I tend to prefer my equipment to be very practical and not to cost the earth. This is particularly so for my commuter bicycles. They end up getting ridden by me more than all of my other bicycles combined, and cost the least amount of money by a fairly large margin. This is because I do a lot of riding around the city where I am going to be locking the bicycle up outside. I refuse to feed thieves, so I won't leave expensive bicycles locked up outside. This means that my commuter bicycles tend to be low end mountain bikes or hybrids. The current one is a mountain bike. All I ask from a commuter bike is that it be inexpensive, comfortable, reliable, and relatively unattractive to a thief.

Sadly, all mountain bikes tend to come with narrow racing saddles. I actually like this since I have an iron ass and don't mind a real (tm) bicycle seat on all my bicycles. However, for commuting, the cut of the cheap (and expensive for that matter) racing saddles brings the crotch of street clothing into conflict with the top of the seat post.

Take note of the exposed part of the front of the seat post / seat rail on this archive photograph of my current commuter bicycle:

While it may be hard to see from this picture, the inner thigh area of a pair of normal "street clothing" pants will rub on the top of the seat post where it clamps to the seat rail. This results in excessive wear on the pants and the potential for pants failure *grin*. While really only embarrassing and not a big deal, it is a design flaw for the use I am putting the bicycle to. I would rather not wear out my clothing faster than I have to given a choice.

So what, you might ask, does this have to do with anything?

Well, it started me on a search for a bicycle seat which would cover that part of the seat post and reduce wear on the clothing. The cost did not matter too much since I would more than make up for it in clothing that lasted longer (my job requires me to have decent clothing - not perfect, but decent - and I figured it would not take long to pay for a new seat if my clothing lasted longer. I wanted something not racy, but nice.

The search ended with a Brooks B-17 saddle.

Now, I have to explain a bit of my bias here. I am anti-smug. I know I just made those who know me well laugh and blow coffee out of their nose, but I really am anti-smug. I don't care about buying my lock them and leave them bicycles based on their aesthetic merit. I love gorgeous lug work on a frame, but really don't care for a lock it and leave it bike. The smug attitudes I see in various bike forums and blogs where the prevailing attitude is "but of course the bicycle has a Brooks saddle and gorgeous lug work, could there be any other kind?!?" makes me want to vomit a little.

And yet, I bought a Brooks saddle.

But I did not buy it for reasons to do with smug.

I bought it to cover the top of the seat post where it joins the seat rails.

That's it.

So here is what I think of it.

It came in a lovely cardboard box with a thick paper sleeve on it. Jolly good show and all that. Included in the package was some Brooks propaganda printed up like an old style newspaper, and the saddle with its packaging.

It really was very well presented.

Two thinks sort of bop you on the nose when opening the saddle. The first is the smell of the thing. This is real leather and has that smell that is usually only found in the better class of Jaguars. Yummy. The second is how hard the saddle is. Brooks says that it is one of their stiffer saddles and I find that easy to believe. The leather is thick enough and stiff enough to serve quite well, if shaped differently of course, as leather armor. Yummy again, although it did raise some concern in my mind about comfort.

As can be seen by the above picture, the saddle comes with a wrench for adjusting the saddle tension. Over time, the saddle will sag, and the tensioning nut in the nose of the saddle can be tightened should this become a problem. Do not tension a wet saddle as the leather could tear.

Brooks sells a saddle treatment called proofide. Buy it. Just do it. Do not use saddle soap or other leather treatments as it could cause the leather to over soften and collapse.

Before using the saddle, put a thick layer of proofide on the underside of the saddle and just leave it. I used a Q-tip to get underneath all the bits and pieces on the underside of the saddle. This helps to soften it a bit, and will protect it somewhat from the elements. The saddle will soak it up. Lightly coat the top of the saddle and allow the proofide to dry. Once it does, buff the saddle to a shine.

Once I did this, I noticed something. The deep brown leather I picked for the colour took on a real glow. The saddle started to almost, er, come alive. It became apparent that the fit and finish of the saddle was top notch. The Brooks badge on the back was a nice touch. The lugs for hanging a saddle bag from the seat are a part of the saddle frame itself. I could feel a bit of smug threatening to overtake me. I quashed it.

Once on the bicycle, and adjusted up, I went for a ride. A good set up tip would be to set the saddle parallel with the ground and then tip the nose up a bit. When I say a bit, I mean a little bit. This makes for a more comfortable ride. Failing to do that results in sliding forward too much on the saddle. Bring some tools on your first outing if you get one of these so you can muck about with it and get it just right.

Here is the saddle set up just wrong. While the stock post on the bicycle is offset to the rear, it is not offset enough. The perfectly parallel parts of the seat rails are fairly short and since I am mounting it on a slightly too small for me mountain bike, I could not slide the seat back far enough on the rails for comfort. If I did, I would have to clamp on the tapering part of the rails just a bit which would cause the seat to work loose in about three minutes. Annoying, but I think unavoidable. Bear this in mind though if you buy one. You MIGHT have to do what I did to solve it. Oh, and isn't this a lovely colour of brown?

Here is the seat set up just right. Notice that it took a new seat post for me to get it just right. Hint - a new seat post on a bike like this costs almost nothing. Just be aware that you might need one depending on the bicycle you are using. However, it was worth it because I discovered something about this seat that I will explain below. Take note how the clamp area is completely covered by the "skirt" of leather on the side of the seat. This is why I bought it. The creeping smug which I will hold off with a cricket bat came later...

What I discovered when the seat was set up just right is that damn it if the smug ones were not correct. This seat, even not broken in yet, is very very comfortable. Very much so. It makes me look forward to when the leather moulds itself to my butt and fits even better! Incidentally, when using one of these, you want your seat bones to be forward of the line of rivets holding the rear of the saddle to the frame. When I was last measured on an assometer, my sit bones came to about 143mm apart give or take. The B-17 Narrow is 151mm wide but fits really well because of the give in the materials. If your seat bones are wider than mine, you would be advised to go with the standard B-17 instead.

This picture shows the adjustment bolt at the front of the saddle. DO NOT USE IT MUCH as turning it too far will ruin the saddle. The front rivets shown here gave rise to that traditional expression in bike racing "on the rivet" describing the posture on a saddle of someone giving all that they had in a time trial. For the first time, this can be a literal thing for me...

On the subject of maintenance, here are a few things to keep in mind. Don't store a bicycle with a leather saddle in a damp or overly dry place (as much as possible) as this can cause the leather to fail. This is true of all leather products and should not be news. Every three months or so, apply some proofide to the saddle to keep it from cracking. If it is left outside in the rain or snow, use some sort of rain cover for the seat.

What do you know? Brooks sells rain covers!

The rain cover pictured above fits (go figure) and does not cost much. I paid about $16 for mine.

Here are a couple of pictures of the bike in its current configuration with the saddle mounted:

My verdict:

As much as I hate to admit it, the smug ones have a point. This is a very well made saddle. It is comfortable. It costs less and is more suited for what I am using it for than many other options (I paid $116 for mine). It is (in theory) more durable than any other bicycle seat I have ever owned. I tend to ruin seats somehow - my wife says I have a kung-fu ass... - but people have reported getting decades of use out of these saddles. Time will tell. The saddle smells nice, looks nice, feels nice. I promises to be less hard on my street clothing.

I only ask one thing of you. If you buy one, buy it for any of the above reasons and leave the smug at the door.