I'm going on a 2 week touring trip and looking to buy a comfortable saddle that will be make my rides pleasant and efficient.
I have about a month to break in the saddle.
How long should I spend breaking a brooks b17 before taking it on a touring trip?
Any tips to speed it up?
There is a lot of complete and utter non-sense around Brooks saddles. When it comes to saddles, everything works for somebody and nothing works for everybody.
Rule #1. If it's not reasonably comfortable on Day 1, it will never be comfortable.
Saddle comfort is about getting the right shape to match your backside, leather saddles like the Brooks will break in and get more comfortable over time, but they won't significantly change shape. If you have the wrong shaped Brooks, it will never "break in" and get comfortable.
A month is not long enough to significantly change a Brooks saddle. But if it's working for you now, it will be working better for you in a month.
Brooks gets a lot of good press because they are wider than typical road saddles and thus for many people it's the first saddle they've used that actually fits them. However, if your Brooks doesn't fit, it's just a heavy, expensive source of pain.
By breaking in your Brooks B17 etc. leather saddle, you create the "valleys" in the leather for your sitbones and the crotch area of the pelvis bone.
Therefore you need enough time for the leather to deform at these three areas. There is various information on the net. My experience is that about 500km of riding (so about 25h at 20 km/h) gives a good enough break-in.
SITBONE
However, I agree with "Fred the MagicWonder Do", if it is not roughly comfortable on day 1, i.e. roughly the width is not good enough, it never will be.
So from these, the biggest deciding factor of saddle comfort is total effective sitbone width. This is measured in cm, and the width you need depends on two things:
Plus additional width required for your riding position (in cm, typically 0-4 cm)
If in doubt, go for wider. Narrower causes pain.
You can measure your sitbone length with cardboard paper (like an amazon shipping box). See the info at SQ Lab for the measurement (you don't need the special device, you can do it on a simple chair).
SQ Lab saddle width measurement
In theory, if the B17 is wide enough for you, after break in, it will be even more comfortable. If it is not wide enough, try Brooks B67.
If I remember well, the max effective sitting width of a Brooks B17 saddle is 12 - 12.5 cm, but you need to check. If your total effective width is above that, you will find it uncomfortable after break in, because your sitbones will be over the metal part of the saddle, where it cannot deform. So what counts for leather saddles is not the total width, but the parts that can deform, inside the metal U-frame. Also, for other saddle brands, this is what you need to check.
The big part of men find comfortable a Brooks B17 width, and these people write in the reviews how comfortable it is. Those who complain, probably have more distance between the sitbones, and/or ride more upright, and the B17 is not wide enough for them.
I have a wider than average sitbone width (12.5 cm), and I ride in a trekking position (14.5 - 15.5 cm), and no surprise, the B17 was uncomfortable for me. The B67 was better. In the end, I decided on a 15 cm SQ Lab 604 saddle, as it is water proof, and I often bike in rain/cold(wet). I don't like that when it rains, I stop, stand on my feet, the leather takes up water, and keeps me wet the whole day.
CROTCH
The other deciding factor is crotch depth - whether there is room for the crotch part of the pelvis bone, or the bone and genitals hit hard plastic/metal.
As there is less weight on the crotch, and when it hurts, unconsciously you will stand more on your legs, it takes more time for the "crotch-valley" to form in the saddle, maybe double time. At the beginning it hurts, and as time goes by, and as the leather deforms slowly, it will be better and better.
An anatomic saddle, which has the valley for the crotch built-in, only needs some play with angle of the saddle, otherwise it should not hurt from day one.
Note that if you change the angle of the leather saddle after break-in, it can be the the crotch-valley is not deep enough, and it hurts again, until it deforms according to your new position.
Otherwise, here's a link for saddle break in: Breaking in a Leather Saddle
This is the most imformative page I've found about Brooks saddles: Leather Saddles - SWHS.home.xs4all.nl
Qualifications: I am a very longtime Brooks rider. I have a B17, Pro and C17 and love them all. I have put in a 630 km day on a B17.
I would say not to worry about breaking in your brooks. It should feel good from day one, for up to 100 km rides.
You need to spend the month that you have riding around with an allen key (commuting will work) and focused on getting the saddle positioning right. This can make or break your entire position on the bike.
A good starting point:
I can't agree with the 'not comfortable from day 1' thing. It's the same thing as shoes-you have to break them in but also you adapt to them. A lot of the reason people give up on them is because people don't put the miles into them.
I own, I think, about 10 brooks saddles and my partner has four on the same number of bikes. They do break in and change shape and nothing is more comfortable for sustained cycling in my opinion. we have toured extensively for many years and I have ridden numerous long Audax events including PBP which involved sitting on the thing for 79 hours over 1200ks. In those circumstances I can assure you that fashion is not an issue. There is simply no other product on the market which adapts to you in the way they do. Having said that, weirdly I have one which has simply never softened despite being stamped 'pre-softened'. I have tried all the obvious things but if anyone has any new ideas about how to soften it I'd like to hear them. It's twenty years old and has been on my commuting Brompton for at least ten. Generally though, my advice would be to look at the folks who do the big distances and see what they use. There are plenty of exceptions of course but Brooks saddles are by far the commonest choice because they're just more comfortable.
I have a B17, and then all my other saddles are basically rigid carbon frames with a thin gel pad and a thin sheet of leather stretched tightly over the thing. Those saddles dont flex.The Brooks does flex. It will conform a little to your butt eventually. It is impossible to know when. The key is to mess around a little with your saddle position to find sweet spot.
I have two Brooks Team Pros, both about 30 years old, one on a touring bike and the other on just a general purpose go-for-a-ride bike. All my stuff is ancient now. They are cracking but haven’t torn yet and I have always found them comfortable. There are some short cuts to breaking in these saddles (like soaking them in motor oil for a month or soaking them in hot water for an hour or two and then immediately going for a long ride), but I’ve always just oiled mine generously (not the brooks cream, you can use any leather treatment cream or Neatsfoot oil). It takes several months (or years) to really break them in, they just continue to get better with time and miles. I can ride a hundred miles and at the end of the day experience zero discomfort - good enough for me. Remember that the oil /cream displaces water otherwise absorbed by the leather. Water will rot the saddle, so oil it often to keep the water out.
I used 2 Lacrosse balls to speed the indentations for my sit bones. Apply pressure with a clamp.
