Hello, I have some sad news. I was reading on here where people were
talking about how to soften up a hardened Brooks saddle a few days ago by
wrapping it and tossing it in a water bath. Well, I did that for a couple
days, and it was still hard as heck. There was only the slightest of
movement near the back. Oh yea, prior to this I tried the using up almost an
entire tin of Profhide on it, with no success. It just absorbed everything
and stayed rock hard.
I decided what turned out to be a horrible mistake of placing the saddle
in a pot of warm water on the stove and gently warming it to try and soften
it a little. Guess what happened? I hated to mention it, because its
embarassing and not only that, it makes me almost cry because of what
happened to a piece of cycling history (my classic Brooks Professional
saddle). I kept an eye on it and gently warmed to the water to hopefully
get a bit of softening. I came back every few minutes and it seemed to be
working. Ummm... Well after about two hours of gentle warming (not even
close to boiling), I came back and the darn seat leather totally ripped into
two pieces! Damn. Apparently the stress in the leather was too much and when
it softened enough it just ripped in half. Now, unfortunately it's a piece
of junk -- lesson learned -- and I just had to mention it here just in case
someone else gets adventurous or a little bit in a hurry to 'soften' their
leather saddle. It was quite an old saddle that I bought on ebay. Maybe my
story will keep someone else from making the same mistake. I wasn't going
to try that, but I was encouraged about all the stories on this list about
successful 'softening' jobs.