Brooks Swallow Saddle - New Leather Top!

I bought my Surly Pacer at the end of March 2012. My chosen saddle was the Brooks Swallow - which is just gorgeous!

29 March 2012: brand spanking new out of the box

29 March 2012: the new build is complete

Less than two months later, however, I noticed the leather was beginning to sag in the middle. I thought this a bit strange. I expected softening or even indents to start forming under my sitbones, but not a depression in the middle of the saddle...

7 May 2012 after about 500km of riding.

I contacted the retailer about this, who kindly put me in touch directly with Brooks England. I was advised to tighten the tensioning bolt under the nose by a quarter turn to draw up the "slack". Brooks reassured me that the saddle has a two-year warranty so if the sagging continued to an unacceptable degree, let them know and they'd replace the entire leather top.

I set about tightening the bolt, only to find that it apparently had not been tensioned properly before leaving the shop (or perhaps even the factory) -- it took 3-4 complete turns before any tensioning effect could be detected!

Over the past year, I have gently tightened the tension twice more. But the sagging continued.

Early this month, over the course of about two days, the saddle went from being vaguely uncomfortable to completely unrideable.

9 June 2013 after 3,161 kilometres. 

A flat spot had began to develop right across the middle of the saddle, as if the entire leather piece was trying to fold itself in half, from nose to cantle.

9 June 2013 after 3,161 kilometres.  

And this folding process was pulling the steel plate underneath askew.

9 June 2013 after 3,161 kilometres. 

By this time, the tension bolt was about halfway through the tension bracket. I could not see how this saddle could "last a lifetime" if this continued to progress. So I notified Brooks, asking them to replace the leather top as per the warranty. I also enquired about upgrading to the Select leather top, which is supposed to be better suited to "high mileage cyclists". (The Select leather is not dyed, so has not been weakened by that kind of processing. It presumably is also a bit thicker.)

I haven't received any communication yet from Brooks but today I received the saddle back, with brand new leather top --

I know this isn't an entire new saddle, as there are marks and bits of rust on my frame -- which nonetheless has been cleaned up and polished.

I could wish there'd been a response on the question of replacing with Select leather, but that's a side issue. I am very impressed with Brooks' turnaround time on this and how absolutely new my saddle looks again.

The Swallow is the best feeling saddle I've ever ridden, so this failure so early in its life was quite worrying. I am very happy to have it back, better than ever -- and this time correctly tensioned! My Pacer looks "complete" and normal again and this makes me happy.