After one missed connection with the UPS man, my Brooks saddle showed up today. When my girlfriend called me at work to tell me it had finally made it, I couldn't contain my excitement. After the hours went by like days at the office, I jumped on my Bianchi road/commuter and sped the 9 miles home in record time. Upon nearing my front door I was greeted by this wonderful site:
Why , might you ask, was I so excited to get this new saddle? For many reasons really. My limited experience with brooks saddle were mostly negative. But things were different back 5 or 6 years when I'd last tried one. For one thing, I was 95 pounds heavier. Surely at my current 6'3" 200 pound dimensions would there be less stress on my rear.
Additionally, I had not really had a chance to truly test a Brooks saddle. I'd really only tooled around on a family members bike that had one. Since then all of my riding had been on synthetic plastic mountainbike type saddles, or even more so riding the easy chair seat of my touring recumbent.
But now I am a new man, a new body, and it's time to try a new seat. I'd read so many positive reviews online of Brooks saddles from bicycle tourers as well as weekend riders. Yes, there is supposed to be a break in period that by some accounts can rival a football season depending on how much riding you do. But these days I've been putting on 150-200 miles on any given week; during many weeks much more.
Enough about that for now, let's get back to the package I received today.
What came was a nice padded envelope containing a Brooks B-17 Imperial (narrow_ with the prototype cutout, a wrench to adjust leather puller thing on the seat, and a tin of proof hide to treat the saddle with.
I have several bikes, but at the moment only one saddle that I switch between all my bikes (except my recumbent, obviously). As it turned out, I'd been selected to test the narrow version of the Brooks. When I found that out I had some concern because as I've mentioned, I'm not a small guy. But in comparing the narrow Brooks to my current saddle (which is comfortable as any I've tried) they're almost identical width. I thought it must of been good after all they Brooks sent me the narrow.
I waisted no time opening it all up and getting ready to test it out. It just so happened that I needed to run an errand across town today to pick up a laptop. This meant that I would take my commuter/grocery bike, my 1973 Raleigh Grand Prix. How perfect it would be, old English steel meets new English leather.
The Raleigh is set up with fenders, racks, panniers, and ridiculously high bullhorn bars for riding in a pretty upright position. It's not a fast bike, more for hauling, sightseeing and things like that. I haven't been riding it so much since I got my Bianchi running a month or so ago. More on that bike later.
I installed the saddle as I install any, basically level.
After airing up the tires,grabbing some tools and a spare tube I was on my way.
Oops, I'm not moving. Oh, looks like the chain fell off.
Now I'm on my way. The first thing thought as I took those first few pedals down the street was something like this:
"Wow, this really really hurts!"
The second thought was this:
"Wow, I'm sliding all over the place! I might fall off the back of the bike!"
The third:
"Wow, these bullhorn bars are ridiculously high, what the heck was I thinking setting this bike up like this?!"
And finally the fourth thought:
"Self, you're an idiot!"
I suffer out of my neighborhood, through some traffic then over to the side of the street to adjust those ridiculously high bullhorns. Prior to that I'd found myself really wanting to lean over further in order to take some of the pressure off of my sits bones. That and the bars were just, well, ridiculous.
OK! Much better. Some of the pressure is now off of my butt. Maybe the b-17 is not meant for more upright positions? We'll see.
The rest of my ride went OK. It was no where near as comfortable as my normal saddle, but then, that wasn't great when I first got it either.
As for the sliding around? Some of that went away when I adjusted my bars. As some people have mentioned on the forums, I may also need to tip the front of the seat up a tad. For now I left it as is and just endured. After all, this was only a 4 or 5 mile ride.
Tomorrow I'll be putting the saddle on my Bianchi and doing something crazy. I'll be going on a 50+ mile jaunt to the dentist, then to my mortgage guy, then back home. There is nothing like a day of testing new leather saddles, root canals, and refinancing your mortgage. Maybe I'm in idiot after all...
