Intro

Comfort makes the difference between having an enjoyable ride and wanting to end a ride as soon as possible. We’ve all sat on uncomfy bicycle seats before, digging into your posterior and leaving it aching or sore. So, with this in mind, we thought we would purchase a new one for our Brompton. We have never purchased a saddle for a bicycle before, so we’re genuinely intrigued to see what sort of an upgrade this would be.

Review

We decided to go with Brooks. They have such a good reputation that we believed, after reading a couple of reviews, we could take the plunge and be almost guaranteed an upgrade to the original Brompton seat. We chose the Brooks Cambium C17, which is in between the thinner c15 and more comprehensive c19 models. We bought ours from Amazon, and at the time of writing, it has over 1888 reviews, averaging 4.6 out of 5. Not bad!

So, our new bum cushion arrived, nicely packaged in a trendy branded box. So far, so good. The thing looks good. It feels good. It has a flexible vulcanized rubber shell, which has the strange properties of being both rigid and resistant and simultaneously flexible. The flexibility allows for the form to adjust with your movements.

Appearance-wise, you can’t fault this saddle. It is sleek and understated but also commands attention. Did we mention that it’s light?

Now to the most crucial part: the comfort. Comparing it with the original Brompton seat, it’s straightforward to address two areas that are comfort relevant. The Brompton saddle is thicker, heavier and provides more cushioning and is suited for longer, slower rides out and about. The C17 feels more sporty. It positions you slightly more forwards towards the handlebars, and its slim and flexy design makes us feel like it is a more aggressive seat, suited for faster rides that require more agile manoeuvres. With this, we lose some of the comforts. Claims that no ‘break in’ period is required, as would be the case with other padded models, might be authentic, but we believe that your body needs to get used to the seat. The first few rides were the equivalent of going from sitting on a pillow on the floor to just sitting on the floor.

Conclusion

To conclude, we think this is a great-looking and well-designed seat. It will undoubtedly serve its rider for a long time and survive all the elements. However, it was a bit of a disappointment coming from the Brompton original (we like the original so much we transferred it to our mountain bike!). Still, there are less comfortable things we have used.