I was amazed to read the instructions posted by Bill Boston on the conditioning of Brooks Saddles. It's about as far from the way I've done it as it could possibly be. I sincerely wish I had a spare Pro that I could try it out on.
I've been riding various Brooks Pro saddles for the last 30 years. I had one that was perfect after 25 years of use. It was destroyed in a crash in Jan. 2000. I now have two of the hammered rivet type, one regular and one pre-softened. I also have one from '79 that I recently purchased used that has the small rivets. It was apparently never maintained, the leather is extremely hard, dried out and cracked. I'm currently trying to bring it back to life with oil and Proofide.
I have always believed that water was death to leather. It dries it out and tends to make it hard. I wear a type of lineman boots that I have used every day for the last 17 years, I currently own 2 pair. They are made from leather very similar in quality and thickness to the Brooks Pro. They are agony for the first 6 months. But with use and regular oiling they become literally as comfortable as bedroom slippers. After about a year they are soft and supple yet supportive. This is the same thing I'm looking for in the saddles I ride. I want them to support my weight, yet give in the right places for comfort. I have acheived this over the years with very infrequent applications of oil (I use Red Wing boot oil) and more frequent applications of Proofide. My results with this technique has given me comfortable saddles that last a long, long time.
Of course, like anything else, too much oil or conditioner can be a bad thing. When I was starting out in the bike industry I had a customer complain to me about the discomfort he was having with a hard leather seat. I suggested neatsfoot oil and Lexol (at the time I did not know about Proofide), which is what I used. I used the comparison of the way he might have treated his baseball glove when he was a kid. Using the oil to shape it to his liking. He came back in with the seat a few days later looking rather amused. The leather attached to the seat frame had the consistency of overcooked pasta. I've never seen anything like it. If you turned the seat upside down, the leather hung down toward the floor. I asked him what he had done. He said he was too impatient to wait the weeks of slow applications of conditioner and using the saddle. So he filled a pan up with oil, put the seat in and left it for a couple of days. He bought a new seat.
Greg Pitman
Rancho Cucamonga, CA