I've just bought No.2 child a Saracen Ariel in size small, but he has relatively short legs for his height and as such the pedal to saddle measurement is a tad too long, 30mm in fact. The frame has a kinked seat tube, so the dropper- a KS Rage i 150mm jobbie - won't go in far enough to allow for the saddle to be a bit lower.
I'm loathed to buy another dropper, so I've been looking into how to limit the travel and after watching a few YouTube videos I came across a guy in the States who placed cut zip ties at the top of the keyways in the outer tube to limit the travel and it worked fine.
The KS Rage i has very narrow keyways, the guide pins in the shaft are small round brass items as seen here, so I've thought why not get some of that brass rod (or even PTFE if I wanted to spend a tenner) from a modeling shop / site in the correct diameter and cut it to the required length then file it down so it doesn't foul the shaft / is flush with the outer tube surface to act as a travel limiter?
The rod is cheap, it'd probably take about an hour of my time and it, in my mind would resolve the issue. As he grows, the little stoppers can then be removed and hey presto, 150mm of travel again.
Cable ties between the seat clamp bolt and saddle rails? Could be done with wire if you want something neater. A bit of a bodge granted
Had to do the same for my son's dropper.Â
Used some gear cable and the brass parts of cable / terminal blocks. Looped one end through the seat clamp bolt and the other looped though the seat clamp.Â
Worked really well. Took minutes to put together and easy to adjust as he grew.Â
you can pick up adjustable travel posts for a reasonable sum and sell one or keep as a spare for when they grow
I used bit of string to limit travel of dropper post on an older frame - just looped through seat post collar and saddle rails. Worked well enough for a year or two for my son. Â
I think I added rubber band on seatpost at some point to control the extra loop when seat was down.Â