CONTAINS TEXT
CATEGORY.
AVAILABILITY
BRAND
OTHER OPTIONS
The comfort, style & functionality of the Brooks saddle never goes out of style. And as one of Brooks England’s Supreme Dealers we are the biggest sellers of Brooks saddles in Australia!
Brooks leather saddles are made to last. And combined with their proofide saddle dressing and the saddle rain cover you can enjoy your perfect saddle for decades to come. Just like so many of our customers before you.
Choosing a Brooks saddle is a matter of taking into account your riding style – whether it be commuting, touring or bikepacking and gravel riding – and your riding position which could be upright on a step-through city bike or a mountain bike you have set up for bikepacking rides, or quite aggressively positioned for road riding and gravel racing.
Once you have your riding style & riding position in mind it is time for aesthetics! Choosing from Brooks’ Cambium rubber saddles for all weather versatility & a lightweight solution on your bike, in a variety of colours and rivet finishes like the Cambium C17 Special Editions with copper rivets and saddle frame.
If you have a touring bike, a classic vintage bike or a trusty steel frame commuter you spend all your time on then a Brooks leather saddle could be the right one for you, available in the classically sprung Brooks Flyer model for a vintage feel or the Brooks B17 Carved Laced for a beautiful, and highly flexible leather saddle to complement any urban bike.
Finding the right saddle can be incredibly difficult, a good saddle is rarely cheap and it is hard to ‘try before you buy’ with saddles when they may feel different on your bike to anyone elses. For all these reasons many of us are riding on an uncomfortable or even painful saddle that doesn’t suit our bike or our style. Here we will provide you with some information about Brooks saddles, and saddles generally, so that you can feel confident in buying a saddle online or in store.
Often the motivation to buy a new saddle is that you are finding your current one uncomfortable or painful. Because your sit bones on your saddle are one of the major load points or ‘touch points’ on your bike, it is very common to find yourself uncomfortable when seated on your bike. The best way to address this discomfort is to first establish what kind of riding position you are in, so as to find the most comfortable saddle for that position.
For the commuter cyclist this can be tricky to determine, you may have a drop-bar road bike with a reasonably ‘aggressive’ riding position requiring you sit at a more angled, forward position with quite a lot of contact on the nose of your saddle. For this position, and for this kind of bike a narrower saddle in a lightweight rubber compound is a good solution. We recommend the Brooks Cambium C17 as a solid middle-ground saddle which suits a lot of riders. As with all Brooks saddles, a carved version of their saddle will have a cut-out in the center which can provide pressure relief but also allows the saddle to bend and flex more, making it a more comfortable option.
If on the other hand you are a commuter cyclist on a step-through bike, or a flat-bar ‘normal’ bike with a quite upright riding position, where you can easily ride your bike without the lycra, then the Cambium C19 is a great saddle for you. With it’s wide seat and comfortable vulcanized rubber top it works for riders who are in and out of the saddle often at traffic lights and works great if you are a woman or have ‘wider’ sit bones.
Many companies now make saddles for women riders, and these are often wider to suit the ‘wider’ sit bones of the female pelvis, or feature more comfort factors like a cut-out in the center to provide pressure relief. While changes within the bike industry to adapt to the reality that all genders ride bikes and that saddles and bikes should be made with this wide audience in mind are welcome, sometimes this can just be marketing differences and not real differences in the product.
Brooks have always offered saddles with pressure relief cut outs – these are their Carved versions of their saddles – and in a number of widths to suit different pelvic anatomy – this is the numbering system found in the product names ie a C19 saddle being wider than a C17 and thus suiting ‘wider’ sit bones. However the biggest difference in the saddles Brook make for women cyclists is the length of the saddle. Brooks Short saddles have a reduced length in the nose of the saddle which can be more comfortable to ride and also create more room inside the frame of the bike when stepping off the pedals, which is great if you are already riding a smaller sized bike.
However, do not be deterred from purchasing Brooks’ best selling saddle size of the last 100 years – the B17 or C17 sized saddle – because the data on what women and gender non-conforming folks find comfortable on a bike is certainly not complete yet and you may very well find that a narrow saddle without a cut-out works perfectly for you.