Some time ago i ventured into th world of dropper seatposts with a KS dropzone. For the money i thought it was ok. I then moved onto a reverb stealth and now to a standard reverb. Ive always thought the dropzone was nicer though and now im looking at either a KS lev (find it had to get one cheap) or a thompson elite.

In my head i think the lev but the thompson one looks nice. Im a bit worried about the cable on the back of the thompson one tho.

So any suggestions?

do you get the magazine? They reviewed them all this month!

The comment about the Fox and the cable loop was in and how nice the KS Lev was (I’d agree having given one a good test for 8 months now) but the Fox made the shortlist not the Lev??

not seen the mag. Maybe its changed when i popped in the other day.

so no other opinions?

I like my Command Post, but it wasn’t reviewed by the mag.

the one i have been most impressed with is the Giant Contact switch. I’ve had Gravity droppers, a Crank brothers Kronolog, a command post and 4 reverbs (normal and Stealth)

the gravity dropper just worked and worked and worked, but was crude.
kronolog was just crap and was visibly worn before i’d ridden the bike.
Command post was a bit flaky as the mechanism jams with mud (fixed with the stealth one, but thats OE only at present)
and ALL of the reverbs i have had have failed and been replaced under warranty, some after no more than a few rides.

the Giant seems to get mediocre reviews from mags, but i think its ace. similar system to Thomson in that its a sealed cartridge doing the moving, infinite travel adjustment in its range, cable operated and a super simple seatpost that has remained smooth, best of all, it can be converted in less then 2 minutes from external routing at the post head to internal at the post base with nothing more than a multitool, same goes for serviceing. and, its £145… only downside is its only a 4″ drop, but thats more than enough!

I’m sure I heard of cable issues with Thomson!? Could be wrong, loving my Lev although some say theirs “sink” in the travel. Mine has been fine, but I’ve not had it long…… I like it due to the longer drop, which if you have a bike with lots of standover makes sense to get the saddle as far down as possible. And the lack of cable movement/loop is a bonus too. Saved about £80 on Stifs price by going German.

I was also disappointed that the command post wasn’t featured in the review. My first generation post (with second generation remote lever) has been faultless for two years now. It’s also pretty simple to strip it down and rebuilt it.

I recently bought the KS Lev Integra (stealth) and it’s superb. I like the 150mm drop and no loose cables a lot. Initially mine kept dropping a bit of it’s own accord and was a bit of a faff to setup. I then sussed out that it didn’t come from the factory with enough air pressure so I let all the air out and re inflated to much higher psi (200psi) and it has worked flawlessly since.

I don’t really like the actuator or rather the way the cable routes out of it with an old V brake style hose link. It makes it very tricky to setup neatly if you run Shimano brakes. Personally for the money I would have preferred the option of an under bar lever like a gear shifter but I guess they have to make it work for all setups not just 1X. That said a bit of creativity with a zip tie and it’s all good.

My Giant one lasted about 18 months before packing up due to grit getting into the top of the “sealed” cartridge so the bit that’s pushed down to release the post doesn’t move properly. There doesn’t seem to be anyway to clean it out and spares don’t seem to be available. It was good whilst it worked though.

I think the only big thing to recommend against KS before was the, ahem, support. I’ve had 2 serviced by Jungle now and the first one was bang on, second rather slow but quite ridiculously cheap, £25 including postage. And that’s a proper 1st-gen i900 that’s been through too many scottish winters, so the fact it’s just ticking over nicely- it’s had 2 replacement parts in its whole life, cost about a tenner, and one pro service- is dang good.

im struggling to find a lev for cheap tho…..any hints

Which post won the review?

I like that KS offer posts with 6″ drop rather than the standard 4″ or 5″. My posts are i900 and i950s (I think, the I-beam one anyway) and have been fine in the last few years. They were initially a bit flaky but that was back in the “using the public as beta testers” phase, as Northwind likes to say, and they all got fixed up under warranty.

so does anyone know where to get a lev cheaply?

i am sure bikediscount.de is the cheapest i have found.

Clobber – Member
Which post won the review?

Reverb, Fox DOSS and Gravity Dropper

Not thomson?