I now owna thompson seatpost.

Its ovalised inside, with more material front and back.

My old ritchey seatpost was ovalised inside. But that had the material on the sides.

Now to my mind putting in on the sides makes more sense? Take a bit of card, very easy to fold it, very hard to bend it in the other plane. Thompson seem to be reinforceing the bit of tube thats easily bent, but surely doing it the other way is adding more to the stiffness as the material is more usefull there?

Either way, both posts claim to be stronger because of it!

its just a tube

I work in marketing (I know, kill me now!)
The truth is that sometimes what we say is true. Rarely is it a total lie but a lot of the time people are just so desperate to try and make themselves sound better than the competition they'll either stretch the truth a little/or leave out the less palatable bits rather than be honest and just say, our thing is good and it works but it's not really better than the competition, just a different way of going about it.
So chances are both companies are right, or at least have some element of truth in their claims. But frankly as they're both known to be reputable companies, I reckon you're ok with either, whichever you prefer.
Same with suspension design a lot of the time. If it's well established and lots of other people like it, and so do you, it's ok
My 2 penn'oth

My old ritchey seatpost was ovalised inside. But that had the material on the sides.

That's BS IIRC, see p10:

http://www.oldmountainbikes.com/catalogs/ritchey/1991/1991RitcheyComponents.pdf

Stress is clearly going to be front-back so that's where the material should be. Think of an I-beam and which way it is orientated according to stress.

EDIT: To be sure there's a ton of marketing BS out there. Specialised, Ellsworth and Trek's suspension chat is the worst IMO.

Aye, I've got both a Thompson and an old Ritchey seatpost on my '91 Rocky Mountain Equipe, and while neither bike is at home to check, I've sure both are butted in the same way. I also had a Ritchey post back in the day, and again I'm sure that was the same.

But my steel frame is zingy and has a certain amount of flex, almost like a tiny amount of rear suspension 😆

I love marketing and I am a sucker for it!!

My new snowboard has copper infused into the base,

EDIT see below

As in copper that gets hot as **** when hot water is flowing through it kind of copper?

Thermal conductivity of 401k in comparison to that well known insulator glass fibre at 0.04 😆

My new snowboard has copper infused into the base, copper doesn't conduct heat well so when the snowboard glides over the snow, its doesn't melt the snow making it go faster!

so you understand how snowboards and skis work then ?

so you understand how snowboards and skis work then ?

Meaning I should be on the edges anyway, yes.

I got it the wrong way round anyway

COPPER FUSION
Copper is the most conductive additive used in snowboard bases, creating the fastest Ride around. It conducts both heat and static and provides benefit over a wide variety of conditions.

Copper Fusion? Is the copper actually fused to the other fibres in the baord or just bonded to them?

http://cozybeehive.blogspot.com/2009/03/thomson-elite-seatpost-failure.html

No – meaning that the reason that skis and snowboards slide is because they melt the snow and you are on a film of water. Snow is pretty grippy stuff.

Ignoring the marketing aspect it makes sense to do the ovalising the Thomson way. Posts that bend do so front to back so that's what you build against. If the Ritchey post was ovalised as you describe, that'd just make it stiffer side to side which would be pointless unless you regularly crash in very odd ways 🙂

FWIW, both would be stronger – just in different directions.

**** me some folk have too much spare time.

I've broken every seatpost I've owned except for a thompson. I'm 29st, is that marketing enough for you.

Ritchey WCS post: 2.5mm front and back, <1.5mm sides.

God I'm bored.

Oli