andyl – Member

Surely the best people to bring out a dropper should be cannondale as they could just make a scaled down lefty.

They went down the same route as they do with their shocks instead and built a dropper post with a second seatpost sticking out the side, it only fits Cannondales which come with dual seat-tubes.

Holy thread etc…

Fitted my Pro Dropper yesterday after my 14 month old Reverb ate its stanction (Evans say it’s my fault).

Here’s my 2p

Some reviews say it’s hard to fit…

As is my way I left it far too late to start and gave myself an unrealistic deadline to hit…

So at 8pm on a dark cloudy evening I headed to the unlit garage… it was unsurprisingly pretty dark… first mistake.

Usual MO, read the first few lines of instructions “oh this is easy” out them down and crack on…

Second mistake – what you’re meant to do it soft-fit, get the right length of outer cable to work with an cut it… nope, fitted it with the full length of outer and the ended bit of the cable in the end of the dropper – wrong, that end goes on the lever…

I could write a few hundred words more on the various cock-ups and cul de sacs I went down but I’ll save everyone an hour and say it took me 45 mins, it should take 30 really.

I like the Shimano seat clamp and I had one before on a static post, it’s very short compared to any others I’ve used, easy to fit once you get your head around so you get a lot of adjustment in seat position fore and aft and it’s easy to get exactly where you want it.

Is it hard to fit? Well yes, Shimano have really tried to remove any friction from the release so both ends of the cable are on freely rotating clamps which means tiny, and I do mean tiny little grub screws and such did I mention it was dark? But compared to the only other types of dropper I’ve tried to fit? Well the X-Fusion was a breeze, but wasn’t Stealth and the post end got covered in crap on the regular where as the Shimano has a cover over it. And a reverb which was frankly hell in comparison and you’ve got to deal with DOT fluid which I hate.

Use…

It’s very smooth, but then it’s brand new.

The release is a million times better than an upside down reverb button, not as nice to use as the new reverb lever but not far off and to me hydraulic is pointlessly complex for a post release. Feels better than my X Fusion but that was really simple and clever because it worked in any direction.

The downsides of the release:

It’s too far inbound to be perfect for me, but you don’t seem to be able to move in or out when mounted with the I-Spec 2. I might fit the normal mount.

Despite it looking and feeling pretty good, it’s held on with a single bolt which means it twists if it’s a bit loose (because I didn’t tighten it – did I mention it was dark?).

It goes up and down when you want it to, it’s smooth, it doesn’t go up or down to fast or too slow there’s much less of a “donk” when it gets to full height.

For my legs and my frame 120mm it nearly perfect – I could probably use a 140mm if it existed, but I couldn’t get a 150mm in unless I lived with it being a little too high and I couldn’t.

And a reverb which was frankly hell in comparison and you’ve got to deal with DOT fluid which I hate.

Wrong – The Reverb doesn’t use DOT fluid.

Wrong – The Reverb doesn’t use DOT fluid.

Okay, noted. I used “reverb fluid” or whatever they called it.

Is it me or does this post look suspiciously similar to the Brand X dropper?

Is it me or does this post look suspiciously similar to the Brand X dropper

Not really in the flesh, I’ve had both.

The X Fusion was a good post but didn’t feel nearly as well designed as the Pro which is classic Shimano ‘cheap and cheerful’ Deore / SLX level stuff, robust without any flash.