In all honestly, it would seem to be a perfect solution to most of the issues surrounding uppy-downy posts. Or would that be just too simple?

– Light weight
– Simple
– Reliable
– Cheap
– Looks like a pile of old bobbins

Didn’t Hans Ray buy ther patent and relaunch it recently?

You forgot

– can’t be adjusted on the move
– often didn’t work

HTH 😉

you can still buy them can’t you?
doesn’t Charlie the Fishmonger sell them? or SJS Cycles or someone?

I had one but wasn’t heavy enough for the seat to go down.
I still think it’s a good idea though.

Yes you can adjust it on the move…that was the whole point of it! You undo the seat QR and sit on the saddle…it drops…you then clamp the QR lever shut – saddle stays put…once done you unclamp QR and stand up – saddle goes back and then you close the QR lever and carry on riding.

It is far too simple compared to today’s ‘equivalents’ and I doubt anyone will go for it as it is a glorified spring rather than something that requires a lot of technology and price tag…

Yes you can adjust it on the move…that was the whole point of it! You undo the seat QR and sit on the saddle…it drops…you then clamp the QR lever shut – saddle stays put…once done you unclamp QR and stand up – saddle goes back and then you close the QR lever and carry on riding.

….quickly followed by a trip to A&E!!!

There’s a reason it stopped selling – it didn’t work very well!

Yes you can adjust it on the move…that was the whole point of it! You undo the seat QR and sit on the saddle…it drops…you then clamp the QR lever shut – saddle stays put…once done you unclamp QR and stand up – saddle goes back and then you close the QR lever and carry on riding.

From that, it sounds like it’s just a spring in the frame and some way of stopping the saddle/seatpost coming up too high/firing up into where you wouldn’t want it fired up into. Sounds pretty simple, but a bit dodgy.

In ye olden days seatposts were stubborn things with lots of scoring from wonky seattubes. Newer bikes seem more accuratley made and the seatpost moves easily. Maybe a revised hiterite would work.

IMO the reason they wont work today:

Is that the majority of us have removable seatpost clamps. They worked when the clamp was firmly welded to the end of a seat tube but alas those days are no more.

http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=hite+rite&hl=en&biw=1283&bih=618&gbv=2&tbm=isch&tbnid=106taRXok879AM:&imgrefurl=http://www.cyclofiend.com/mtb/index.html&docid=oG4X3PKdFM1Q4M&w=253&h=521&ei=49hTTvW4D8rKhAf4-8GRBg&zoom=1&iact=rc&dur=0&page=1&tbnh=150&tbnw=72&start=0&ndsp=17&ved=1t:429,r:7,s:0&tx=32&ty=67

Joe Breeze doesn’t think so, he uses a gravity dropper 🙂 It was a clever thing, I remember being dead envious of a mate that had one, but we have better stuff now- inspired by it no doubt.

just stick a couple old boxxer springs in yer seat toob – same effect 😀

Pretty much Realman – it was completely simplistic…nothing overly engineered…

I can raise and lower my seatpost fairly easily while riding along with a normal QR but something along the lines of a hiterite but rather than a spring to aid raising the post, a mechanism to stop the saddle at full extension and keep it straight without the need for looking would be handy.

As all the telescopic seatposts are still utterly shite at holding a saddle still I’m not really interested in eventually someone has to actually designs and manufactures one properly.
I also wonder when the first frames with an on the fly adjustable seat mast linkage will arrive.

hiterite also came from a time when seatposts only extended out of the frame a few inches. It would be a hell of a reach down on most modern sloping TT frames.

Ah’m ooout

I might be missing the point a bit here but could the hite right principle not be applied to an uppy downy post? i.e. a torsion spring mounted externally and a very basic actuating mechanism. could be made lighter than some of the current lot. not sure it would be significantly better than a GD though…

If it helps anyone picture what they look like, here is mine fitted to my 1992 Breezer Lighting Pro. It came with it when I bought it new. Bit of a faff to use on the move and requires a smooth post/tube to work properly. Does suffer from twisting, could have used 2 springs I guess. Odd that this was around late 80’s then nothing then suddenly a few years back all these new droppers. Ive owned a couple of KS ones for nearly 2 years and a GD before that, wouldnt ride without now…