BROOKS × BLUELUG ”BL17 SPECIAL "

Last summer, we got a contact from Brooks about a possible collaboration.

It was their first time collaborating with a bike shop, so there was a lot of pressure, but we’ve used countless amount of Brooks saddles on our builds. Their products helped our bikes look classy through out the years, so we have decided to humbly accept the offer.

I felt the need to see what goes down at the Brooks factory, so I went and visited their factory in Smethwick England.

This is the video we made about the factory tour they gave us. It’s a long video, but I think you will enjoy it. The amount of process that are needed for each models and the history behind the brand should impress you.

It doesn’t make sense to just buy and get over these quality products. We need to use them a lot, with love.

Gotta love them to the point you name your saddle!

The “BL-17 Special” was born.

The design was based off from their classic models, B17 Standard. It’s a product that is perfect, so it was quite difficult to give a twist to them.

The following are some of the key features to the collaboration saddles.

First thing you’ll notice about these saddles is that there is a name column on the sides. The Japanese text “おなまえ” literally means “name”.

This is a sample that I own, which has the name column on the right side.

You can put your name, name of your family member or even your pet’s name on the saddle with a grinder tool, metal stamp, carving knife, etc…

Let the people know who owns the saddle.

Secondly, the leather material is applied inside out, making the batch code show on the surface of the saddle.

These codes are usually engraved on the inner side of the leather, but I thought they deserved to be shown, after going to their factory.

I learned that there are birthdays for each of the saddles that they produce.

The “2B5” engraving shows the year and month of production. The numbers 2 and 5, in this case shows the year 2025.

The alphabet in the middle represents the month. “A” being January, the letters go up to “M”. The letter “I” is excluded since it can be mistaken as the number one.

In this case, the saddles were produced in February 2025, since the letter in between the numbers are “B”.

This one is a newborn!

The number “2883”, is the batch code of the leather. We can now appreciate these saddles even more when we get off the bike and look at these codes.

We made black, brown and natural. The three classic finishes.

I have been using the sample in the natural color finish. As you can see, there are some beautiful aging happening to the saddle. I’m very exited to see what the saddle looks like few years later.