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Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store Brooks open London concept store
Brooks B1866

Brooks open London concept store

Brand most famous for leather saddles now have a shop in Covent Garden
by Mat Brett
Mon, Nov 18, 2013 11:48
9

Brooks have opened their own concept store in London, selling their complete range of saddles, bags, clothing, and other components and accessories.

The store, situated in Seven Dials, Covent Garden, is called B1866 and it began trading on Saturday. 1866, by the way, is the year in which Brooks was founded in Hockley, Birmingham by John Boultbee Brooks.

As you might expect from a brand like Brooks, B1866 is a classy, traditional-looking joint with everything very neatly displayed. Brooks themselves are referring to it as the Brooks Cathedral. The large range of leather saddles for which Brooks are best known, of course, get pride of place.

Brooks make more of their heritage by displaying photos of John Boultbee on the walls.

The shop sign is made from copper – an allusion to the copper rivets used in Brooks saddles – and it’s a theme that continues inside.

As well as the saddles, Brooks have a large range of bags, covering everything from backpacks to panniers, and it’s all on display at B1866.

B1866 is located at 36 Earlham Street, Seven Dials, London WC2H 9LH. It is open 10am-7pm Monday to Saturday, and noon until 6pm on Sunday.

For more info on the Brooks range visit www.brooksengland.com

Brooks
B1866
B 1866
Mat Brett

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. We send him off around the world to get all the news from launches and shows too. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

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9 comments

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Ghedebrav | 10 years ago
0 likes

Yeah, fair play to them. I don't quite chime with their over-egged 'artisanal hipster' thing (though to be fair that is with an eye and a half on the US market), but bottom (arf!) line is that the product is great, well-made and lasts decades. My granddad road a B17, now I do, and I expect my grandson will.

Sorry, that all went a bit Werther's Original didn't it? 31

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bici1977 | 10 years ago
0 likes

Some people need to cheer up a little. Its a concept store. By definition, it is meant to show what the brand and the products are all about. Brooks quite clearly has heritage and they show it. Its a sleek and stylish shop and I for one like it.

You dont like it? Nobody forces you to visit it or buy their products!

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sm | 10 years ago
0 likes

Here's a concept. Fill the empty shop with bikes with your saddles on them so people can actually sit on them and see what they're like.

The fetishing of cycling continues.

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Neil753 | 10 years ago
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Ah, I see things have moved on from the days when you could buy a "Brooks Professional", with those large rivets, from ads at the back of Cycling Weekly for just ten quid a pop, in the early eighties.

Mind you, this sort of "select outlet" helps keep Britain on the modern map, and brings in lots of lovely foreign revenue to help keep the lights on; so three cheers I say!

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caaad10 | 10 years ago
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Ah, so that's why they are so expensive now....

All very cool & trendy, which means in a couple of years it will probably look very '2013'...... I'd much rather the Brooks range wasn't image led. For me, a well (UK) made product being sold at a reasonable price was what it was all about, and I'm uncomfortable (no pun intended) about the current branding exercise. I don't want something because people think it's cool, let's not forget we're talking heavy leather saddles ffs!

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MartinH replied to caaad10 | 10 years ago
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You can't really blame them. You can have the best product in the world, but you won't sell many if your image is wrong, and it wasn't that long ago that Brooks were viewed quite widely as a bit of a fuddy-duddy old man's brand that no "serious" fashion conscious cyclist would buy into. So if their product has come right back into fashion now, it's only natural for them to capitalise.

Good luck to them, I say. The B17 on my tourer is one of the best purchases I've ever made, so I have pretty much unlimited goodwill towards them as a company!

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William Black | 10 years ago
0 likes

That's one of the wankiest thing I've seen of late.

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Andytoohey | 10 years ago
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It'd be good if they come up with a 'concept' to stop f**kers nicking the saddles! I've stopped buying them....

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antonio | 10 years ago
0 likes

B1866, a great name for a Brooks saddle!

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