msquared22

I can't take the pain anymore - I have to give up on my Brooks Cambium C17s Carved. (Reference point: I am female, mid-30s, in shape. I bike because I like to bike, but also because I can't run as much as I want anymore. My touring bike is a Salsa Vaya.)

I had a bike fitting done two years ago (which was about a year after I purchased my first real bike) where I tested a bunch of saddles as well. The Cambium felt the best of the bunch and the guy swore that everyone loved these new saddles. I was just a noob back then and I'm not sure I really knew what a properly adjusted saddle should feel like and the Brooks felt pretty good on my bike on the trainer, so I bought it. It certainly felt better than the cheap, crappy saddles I had been riding before, so I was happy enough.

I did my first tour on that saddle shortly after purchasing it -- 500 miles over 8 days. The saddle caused me pretty bad pain for the first two days until I moved it forward a smidgen. Then it was just okay. If I stood up and coasted out of my saddle frequently, I was able to keep riding. I couldn't stay seated on it for more than 15 minutes. It squished my lady bits and caused a lot of pressure. I finished the tour, but the riding part wasn't very fun.

I read everything I could on the internet about the Cambium. How I should adjust it, other people's experiences, how everyone raved about this damn saddle being the most comfortable thing ever. I tinkered with the adjustment constantly. Forward, backward, level, tilted slightly up, slightly down, raised it, lowered it, anything I could think of. Occasionally I would find a sweet spot where it almost felt pretty good, but on the quest to make it feel as good as everyone else raved, I would inevitably change it and have to start all over again. It always supported my sit bones quite well. My butt was good, but my female parts were NOT. Even when I had the saddle where I considered it to be "pretty good", my lady bits had pressure. I tried creams and different shorts with varying levels of padding, but nothing worked.

It got to the point where I didn't even want to go for short rides, but I kept powering through, figuring I was just doing something wrong because I didn't know any better and because my sit bones felt so great. On Memorial Day weekend this year, we did a 3 day/180 mile weekend tour and I was absolutely miserable on the bike. Finally arriving home was the most welcome relief ever. I resolved to never sit on one of those saddles again. EVER. (And I have two of them now! Hopefully I can sell them.)

So now I am on a quest for a new saddle. I bought some from REI (and plan on using their generous return policy) and each of them was significantly better than that damn Brooks. I was able to sit for an entire 20 mile ride on a Terry Butterfly Century saddle without ANY pain. I cried. Seriously. I also really liked the Selle Italia Max SLR Gel Flow. Those are the two saddles I am hanging onto for a while to ride/try. They are both fairly flat in the rear with generous cut outs. Looking back on my first bike fitting, the guy didn't give me anything to try that was a woman's model besides the Cambium. I tired a lot of men's saddles that didn't have a cut out and none of them felt good.

My TL;DR question is this: If the Cambium doesn't work for me, how likely is it that one of the leather Brooks will feel good? For touring, everyone is all Brooks, Brooks, Brooks, Brooks. The bees knees, the holy grail, the promised land. Should I even bother trying a B17? And does anyone else hate the Cambium as much as I do?