Does anyone have a xc race bike with a dropper on?

Im thinking about getting a canyon 29er, and after having a dropper on both my bikes for 2 years, I couldn’t live without one now.

Im probably not going to be racing it, but want a fast 29er ht to have a more ‘traditional’ xc style ride.

I know the canyon Al’s are not hardcore race bikes, but would a dropper be out of place on one?

Cheers

I think we’re going to see droppers specced on a wider range of bikes in the future – XC bikes included.

So, go for it.

First bike I bought one for was a racey XC HT. I think we’ll start to see them more frequently in serious competition soon enough. Here’s the women’s winner of the Wisconsin ProXCT mid-race:

Hmm… it will take a bit of an attitude change, plus it will need courses to become a lot more technical than they are now to make it worthwhile lugging round the extra 250g or so. In the UK courses don’t really need one, apart from maybe Hadleigh, but even here I think it would be something too much to think about when I can barely speak, concentrate or breath as it is.

For endurance events in the UK they are totally pointless – nothing needs that level of saddle lowering… Having read a few reports of things like Iron Bike though, perhaps there they might make a difference as descending an Alp is quite different to descending the Surrey Hills…

For messing about down the woods? Why not. It’s only adding 250g of weight in a fairly inconsequential area. The type of bike it’s fitted to doesn’t really matter, if it improves the quality of your ride.

For short course XC racing? I think for technical courses they will start to feature more and more on XC race bikes, as they will probably save more time than the additional 250g of static weight will cost. For more boring courses or for those with the skills of Niño Schurter or Julien Absalon, they won’t really matter.

For longer XC racing, such as endurance events (ie. Mountain Mayhem, Bontrager 24/12 etc.), I see them as something else to potentially go wrong and cause a problem during the course of the race. I removed my Reverb from my bike for mountain mayhem, and good thing too, as next time I put it on the bike it stopped working and is now winging its way back to Fishers for a warranty job! Less of an issue for a short course race, where if anything goes wrong you’ve lost it anyway, but in endurance where reliability is key, I don’t think they’re worth it.

My “XC race” bike (my everything bike now) will have one fitted for most of my riding though when it returns from warranty. Will still keep a rigid post too though.

I’m all for them myself on long xc rides: so for example doing the SDW in a day I enjoyed, after yet another long slog climb, being able to at least enjoy the down a bit more by being able to drop the saddle and bomb it down…not necessary but more enjoyable imo. Even with rigid forks on my HT 29er, I still run my Joplin.

I run a standard post on my Trek Superfly 100 sl,its my XC bike so dont really need one. My Nicolai AC has a Reverb,this bike is my trail bike that i do all the really steep and technical trails on.

I dont think i will fit one to my Trek,as i prefer to keep it as light as possible and its just over 24lbs.

I’ve got one on my flux. It’s awesome. Sure, it’s not necessary but it is nice to have.

yes absolutely, I love how my bike handles with the saddle dropped even on normal run of the mill barely-gradient singletrack. & I’m sure I’m faster.

I’m not a proper xc racer so I don’t think i really count, but do I notice the extra 250g or so? Nope. Does it make me faster and safer on the way down? Yup. Especially in a busy race where it gives you overtaking options you otherwise lack, it might only make me 10 seconds or whatever faster down a particular descent at my own pace but if you’re stuck behind some other dude it can cost a lot more time than that.

Proper racers have already invested a lot of time and skill in riding around the problem of the high seatpost, which most of us won’t or can’t do. (and also, tbh if I’d put a lot of work into minimising the issue I’d be less keen on the hardware workaround regardless of how well it worked)

Godsend on the Bonty at 3am, needed all the help I can get!

In any case, we’ll know if it’s beneficial for racing- the UCI’ll ban it.

Tod Wells was running one on his epic this year, he talks about it in one of specialized youtube videos.

See them quite often in the Rockies for longer style events where you might be climbing for a good hour and then doing a descent. Not so sure for short course but the Canmore race course has a few technical sections that I prefer doing with the dropper (but I’ve seen the properly fast people not even slow down much on the same sections)

If there are more seconds to be gained in descents than are lost carrying it uphill, then yes.

If it makes you happy do it! No need to seek permission

I’ve got one on my anthem, that I’ve never raced but use for xc type rides, that I also use with a shim on my 180mm dh/fr bike if there’s no uplift and I might attempt to ride the bike uphill a wee bit
If you think you’ll use it then get on with it, quit worrying if its “ok”

i have a reverb on my xc bike simply because i like it and although i dont use it much, i do use it for stairs rail way bridges etc and nasty rooty sections and steep descents “beats the hell out of lowering a gritty dirty seat tube and clamp”

my AM bike also has a ks dropper and that gets used all the time when on that bike ..

if you like it why not..

Cheers for the replies 🙂

Im not the sort of person who cares too much about what people I dont know think of me, so I was going to do it anyway. I was just interested in fellow bikers thoughts on the matter.

I’ve got one on my Anthem and I had one ony FF29 too.

I don’t always have it in the Anthem, but for days out, trail centres and XC Enduro events like the Dyfi it’s a definite. For normal XC racing its replaced by a normal post

Get a non remote one and then switch as required.

They’ll become more common I reckons. I’d be interested to try one, but not sure I’d rush to have one on a race bike used in the UK.

Godsend on the Bonty at 3am, needed all the help I can get!

which section?

If you are looking at the Grand Canyon, then I know the Carbon one’s have cable guides for a dropper post on the top tube

Use one on the anthem for trail centre rides, gets swapped to a rigid post for racing. If it was lighter I would probably leave it. Also a pain to fit the controls on in exactly the place I want which on a long ride bugs me. Maybe if/when I go 1*11 that’ll be a non issue

I reckon if they can get weights down to the 300-350g mark, you’ll start seeing them on the really tough world cup courses.