Brooks Saddle Review: B17 vs. Swift.

I suppose this blog is starting to read like a Brooks adoration site. Well to be honest they manufacture pretty good products, and I have been using their saddles for around five years now and I have found them to be outstanding in terms of comfort and durability.

B17 - And the U.K's pitiful snow.

My first Brooks saddle was a standard B17 model, which was purchased in advance of our John o’ Groats to Lands End trip in 2009. It served me well but is starting to look pretty beat up after a few crashes and my general disinclination to maintain anything properly. It’s seen a lot of abuse, and has been used for many miles in the rain, which is apparently isn’t recommended for Brooks saddles due to their leather construction (it came supplied with a rain cover but it looks stoopid). Anyway the B17 was starting to resemble something dredged up from the seabed so I decided to purchase a Swift before embarking on our tour last summer.

Everybody knows that you have to break in a Brooks saddle and that it can take some time before it contours to your backside like an armchair you haven’t left for three days. With my B17 this was a doddle however the Swift (15cm) proved to be a bit of an arse wrecker, this is because it’s a lot more slender in terms of width than the B17 (17.5cm) and the leather is therefore more taught, it also feels thicker. In comparison it took around three months to get the Swift broken in and it still wasn’t that comfortable at the beginning of the trip, which wasn’t ideal, however since then my backside has triumphed (with the help of proofide) and the Swift is as comfortable as it will ever be.

As I mentioned before the Swift is considerably thinner than the B17 which suits me as I generally prefer thinner race saddles, however riding a century on a Sunday is somewhat different to doing them everyday for a month and a few days into the trip I began to realize that I had made a mistake leaving my trusty old B17 at home, I’m not saying that the Swift isn’t comfortable, its better than 75% of the saddles I have ever tried, I would have just preferred the extra support offered by the B17 which is more suitable for touring, however I knew that before we left but decided to take a risk.

Swift.

In terms of fit and finish the Swift is far superior with its hand hammered copper rivets and chamfered sides. The rails on the B17 are looking rusty these days but I doubt that the same will happen to the swift, as the rails seem to be of better quality. Having said that the swift did cost twice as much so that’s to be expected.  The colours have aged nicely and the once honey coloured B17 is now a darker brown while the swift hasn’t changed much apart from a joker at work spilling some kind of chemical on it which has resulted in a strange effect on the leather.

I would recommend a Brooks to anybody looking for a comfortable saddle and not just for travelling long distances on. They are extremely durable and if you treat it better than I treat mine they could easily outlast you. For touring purposes the B17 is a must buy, It’s an absolute classic and is the standard choice for touring for a good reason, they are also one of Brook’s least expensive saddles which is always a bonus. While the Swift served me well on tour it would probably be more suitable for a vintage road bike or for riding shorter distances.

Bike Review - Genesis Croix de Fer.

When we did John o’ Groats to Land’s End in 2009 we rode completely unsuitable bikes, mine was an aluminium flat barred road bike while Jamie rode a Halford’s Carrera subway. Needless to say these were not suitable for extended laden touring purposes. We decided to invest in something more up to the task of lugging all our kit and ourselves on lengthy continental adventures.

The bike we settled on was the Genesis Croix de Fer, these bikes are suitable for long distance touring as proven by Vin Cox’s epic round the world trip completed on a slightly modified hub geared version. While essentially a cyclo-cross bike (too heavy to race) they really do everything well, I guess you could call them a jack of all trades which suits us well as they fulfill the role of commuter hack when not on tour and negate the need for multiple bikes (we aren’t made of money!).

Jamie’s 2010 spec version came equipped with Shimano disc brakes, which were prone to squealing like a stuck pig upon heavy braking. I purchased mine a year later (I’m a copycat), which had the updated and noise free Avid BB7 brakes, of course the addition of disc brakes makes it impossible to install a regular pannier rack and mudguards, a disc specific rack is required. Jamie’s version came with a 9-speed cassette at the rear as opposed to my 10 speeds, which was advantageous for me on the climbs. The Shimano Tiagra groupset works flawlessly, it’s not the lightest but that’s not the point. Gear changes are smooth and it seems like it will continue to function well for years to come.

It also makes a reasonable 'party bike'.

The frame is comfortable and the steel soaks up bumps well enough and we found all the stock parts (bars, stem and seatpost) to perform well and I have no real desire to change any of them out. The white color scheme looks great, and doesn’t get as dirty as I had anticipated. Genesis has now changed the colour to black, which doesn’t look nearly as good. We are both 6’ 2” and found the 58cm frame size to be a great fit. Of course the saddles had to go, these where replaced by a pair of Brook’s leather saddles, the standard for bike touring, and I will testify that they live up to the hype and are worth paying extra for. I have used a B-17 in the past and now use the much more slender Swift model (which I will review). Jamie uses a B-17 and is very happy with it. For my next tour I will more than likely switch out the stock brown faux leather bar tape for some Brooks leather tape as it gets slippery with sweat and isn’t comfortable to grip for long periods.

My only real beef with the bike was the stock wheels. It seems to me that the spokes are of very low quality and tend to snap extremely easily; by the halfway point we had each broken 4 spokes. It seems to me that Genesis could have used stronger spokes, especially considering the Croix de Fer is marketed as a go anywhere, do anything bike. Jamie’s freewheel also seized up literally 100m from the ferry terminal at St. Malo, it was a real spot of luck that it gave up there after 2070 miles rather than out in the middle of nowhere. I’m currently looking into getting completely new wheels built for the next trip, as there is nothing more frustrating than unreliable wheels. It’s also worth bearing in mind that 700cc wheels with disc brakes are a fairly new concept and still aren’t very common, the owner of the bike shop we visited seemed baffled by them and didn’t stock replacements. The bikes came fitted with cyclo-cross tyres, which we both switched out for continental slicks to lessen rolling resistance.

Overall I would recommend the bike to anybody looking for a light-touring bike that is capable of doing most things to a reasonable standard. I paid £999 for mine (from epic cycles) and consider the value to be outstanding, however I would have happily paid more if Genesis decided to supply better wheels with the bike. I can see the bike lasting me for many years to come and carrying me on many more tours.