You are correct that leather saddles need to be protected from the rain. I keep a shower cap  in my Arkel handlebar bag,  and I can easily access it even while riding and slip it over the saddle. Mine cost $1 from the dollar store.  While it's helpful to protect the saddle during hard rains on tour, it's biggest use is to keep dew off the saddle while camping overnight.

You’re right about the rain.  I forget now but I think my Peugeot U-08 back in the early 1970’s came with a Brooks, as did the Motobecane I bought 3 years later (I got rid of the Peugeot when my first wife and I liquidated everything when we thought we were going to Chile on Peace Corps assignments, until Pinochet overthrew the government).  I loved the Motobecane but didn’t love the saddle enough and let it slowly disintegrate in the rain.  When I finally replaced  it it resembled the spine of a starved animal and made a poor ride.  I’ve never been tempted by a leather saddle since.

Like everyone else on this thread I am trying to stay away from controversy and I understand that cycle touring is a very personal thing..

However, Brookes leather saddles are one of the two best choices Leigh and I ever made.  I'll leave the other one for another potentially controversial thread.

Keeping it dry is not an issue.  While cycling your rear end covers it and a plastic shopping bag is all that is needed in case it stands out in the rain.

In 44 years as an adult (21+) I've paid for 5 bicycles, none came with leather saddles. 

I've replaced two due to damage in the bad old days when I used to use car top bike racks. My wife was driving once and hit an ATM machine overhang, I hit our garage door sill - then came to my senses about car top bike carriers...)

I think one of those incidents was about when saddles with cutouts first came out and I decided to  try one - a bikini for your bike: less is more!

I really liked the feel and over the years tried others to replace stock seats as I bought new bikes. Leather saddles didn't seem to come with cutouts and I still had high school memories of taking care of the leather straps on my lacrosse stick and my leather baseball glove after games in the rain.

But, I bet if I tried a leather saddle I would prefer it, because I finally noticed that I always liked the new saddle over the old. I never once thought "The old saddle was better."

Now, I'm a Clydesdale 100kg/220lb cyclist and carry a lot of padding with  me - I don't think the seat material or padding carries much weight in my long hours in the saddle comfort equation.

I was tempted once to get a leather saddle, after I bought a Trek 520 in 1992 or so. It was dark green and I saw one with a tan Brooks saddle and the tan sidewalls - looked very posh! But, I've never really been good at posh, and my ample posterior hides the seat from view, anyway.

hey, we have something in common!  I too destroyed two bicycles with the help of a roof rack - one at a time about a half year apart, driving into our garage.  The second one convinced me.  Never again.

"I've replaced two due to damage in the bad old days when I used to use car top bike racks.  ... I hit our garage door sill"

One of the most informative email subject lines I ever received was from a friend:

Garage 1, Bike 0.  GAME OVER.

I knew from that exactly what had happened, but also that he was clearly taking it in stride and able to make light of it 

In 2009 or so I got into sea kayaking, which meant either buying a trailer or facing the roof top racks daemon again.

The difference is the 17' kayak is longer than the car and it and the prow tie down are very visible from the driver's seat - you have to try really hard to go into a garage. A bike up there with kayaks was safe when we vacationed.

Torn rotator cuff put an end to my sea kayaking in 2014, off came the roof rack never to be seen again...

Sorry to hear about your rotator cuff.

My friend had a "Load Alert" thingy, which was basically a little spring-loaded magnetically-attached doodad that he stuck on the hood of his car when he was carrying items on the roof.  At any significant road speed the wind flowing over the device kept it closed, but it would open when he slowed to the speed appropriate for entering a garage.

Sadly for him, he had become so habituated to its presence that he no longer consciously saw it.

After having done scratch-and-dent damage to EVERY car on which I've ever mounted a roof rack, I've switched to a bike rack that mounts in the hitch receiver of my current vehicle.  Our kayak was selected in part because it's an "origami" type that folds up small enough to fit inside the vehicle and therefore does not require an external rack when being transported by vehicle.

I am by no means an authority on the subject. The Brooke’s B17 saddle has been very good and comfortable for me. Since switching to it I have had no desire to try another saddle. 

Let’s see, my first 10 speed bike had a French Ideale leather suspension saddle and  the next bike, my storied Paramount, had a Brooks. Both produced utter and complete agony for my skinny teenage butt. At one point I put an old leather baseball mitt on the Ideale to make it ridable. Weeks of wrapping saddle soap drenched towels at night, some delicate work with a ball peen hammer and a few now forgotten incantations had little effect in softening up the brick hard leather. Both saddles eventually broke in and became more or less comfortable. If memory serves me, back in the 1950s and early 60s there were only leather saddles of various qualities available. At least on the west coast of the US, Brooks were considered to be the gold standard.

I don’t remember my first artificial saddle but my Fuji Finest from the mid 70s had a leather covered “artificial” saddle. Since then I’ve been through a plethora of saddles searching for the holy grail of sitz bone comfort. In the 80s I worked for a company that turned a pair of 747 pilot's seats into thrones, covered with purple goat leather, for a Persian Gulf sheikh and sheikha for their royal 767 airplane. There was some left over royal purple goat leather. I stripped off the plastic cover of my existing saddle and glued some “royal foam” and the purple kidskin to make a workable saddle with a story repeated here for the first time.

Maybe ten years ago I was taking a test ride on a Dahon folding bike equipped with a Brooks saddle. In an instant my third contact area remembered the agony of five decades previous and declared “NEVER AGAIN!”.

I currently ride atop a ten year old Selle SMP Hybrid saddle soon to be replaced with a new Hybrid, this time with gel padding.

An historical note: Brooks often cites that the cycling legend and 5 time TDF winner Eddy Merckx  rode on a Brooks, which he transferred from bike to bike - undoubtedly because they are so hard to break-in.