How to fix a squeaky Brooks Flyer

I bought a Brooks Flyer saddle a month ago, having convinced myself that it was the best saddle for ‘extended’ riding.  I ride to work everyday, each way lasting 45 minutes.  I found with the original saddle that comes on the Trek 7.4 FX hybrid bike, it was comfortable enough in the first 30 minutes, but started to feel uncomfortable after that.  Having read comments and reviews online, the consensus is that Brooks provides the comfort on long rides because the leather moulds to your bone structure.  

On my first few rides, the saddle was very hard and very slippery.  Because the rails on the saddle was quite short, I needed to buy the Velo Orange seatpost which has a large set back of 300mm.  The seatpost also have infinitie adjustment for tilt using two bolts, which is a significant improvement over the serrated teeth adjustment of the original Trek seatpost (saddle pointing either too high or too low).  Anyway after spending $200 on the saddle and seatpost, I was expecting blissful rides.

The saddle was very comfortable and the springs work very well to dampen any road imperfections.  But it was also very noisy!  The saddle squeaks loudly whenever I paddle or going over bumps.  Following suggestions made on online forums, I greased the seatpost clamp, saddle rails and added some lube to the nose bolt and springs.  Unfortunately this did not cure the noise.  A big problem was that I couldn’t get the lube and grease into the metal contacts within the springs.  I was starting to resign myself to the fact that I just have to get used to squeaky noises if I want to continue using the Brooks Flyer.

Refusing the give up, after a week, I started looking for other solutions.  Tracing the source of the squeak, I felt some vibrations on the inner rails (not the bottom rails that attach to the seatpost) whenever pressure is apply to the saddle.  I reasoned that if I could unscrew the spring assembly at the back of the saddle, I can apply grease to the metal contacts which should cure squeak causing vibrations.  The nuts holding the springs looked easy enough to unwind from the screw.  However, I was apprehensive about taking things apart.  After a fruitless search on the internet for people who has done this before, I came upon a post about someone curing the issue by spraying WD-40 into the springs and nose bolt area.  Sure enough, after trying this method, the noise was completely gone!  The WD-40 comes with a narrow straw that allows the substance to be sprayed into really small gaps around the springs.  Now I can finally enjoy my blissful rides on a really comfortable saddle.

I have now done about 200km on the Flyer and it was comfortable after the first 100km.  I did not apply any proofide to the saddle and don’t understand why some people online seem to make it an obsession to do so to ‘hasten’ the saddle break-in.  On the FAQ section of Brooks website, they state that a new saddle is ready to ride and doesn’t need proofide until six months later. It’s reasonable to do it for water protection but in my case, it wasn’t necessary for saddle break-in.  Maybe my saddle was made with softer leather.

A side note to saddle shopping is that I would not buy a saddle without trying on ever again.  Prior to the Brooks saddle, I bought a Charge Spoon saddle online after reading a large number of favourable reviews, with many claiming it was the most comfortable saddle ever.  When it arrived, I was sceptical because it looked too narrow and sure enough was extremely uncomfortable as the wide part of the saddle was not wide enough to support my sit bones.  Instead my weight was supported by the soft tissues between the bones.  I’ve never thought much about the whole sit-bone measurement issue because being 5 foot 9 and 70 kg, I’ve never considered myself a big guy.  But looking at the useless saddle, I dawned on me that some people just have narrower sit bones than me and the width probably has nothing to do with weight.  Since the cost of sending the seatpost back to the UK from Australia would cost more than the refund, I kept the saddle as a reminder that ‘low price does not always equal low cost’!