[Closed] Most reliable dropper

Everyone will be along shortly to tell you their dropper is best.

I have x2 KS LEV Integra droppers one is 31.6 150mm the other is 30.9 150mm and both have been close to flawless. The 31.6 is several years old now and apart from a small fault after 2 years it has had no other issues. The fault was barely noticeable but on close inspection the seatpost would sag by about 5mm when seated. The other dropper has not had this problem. They seem to cope well with British weather and are very easy to self service as far as strip and degrease goes and of course being cable actuated is miles better than hydraulics in my opinion, much less to go wrong. The 1 x remote lever, the southpaw is poor and best avoided, the clamp is very badly designed and as a result it is almost impossible to stop it rotating on carbon bars. I changed to the race face lever instead which is a massive rip off but works and feels miles better.

Bet the Fox is very good too.

+1 for KS. I've had a Dropzone for nearly 3 years now and it's never let me down... no wait, it lets me down every time... erm... it's faultless.

Never serviced, I just clean off any grime/dust and lube it up every now and then.

My pals and I have had Thomson, Reverb and Specialized between us without any real issues. Out of that bunch the Thomson is the most solid and better made.

+2 for ks

I was in at my local suspension service centre yesterday and he reckons the neew Crank Brothers one is excellent. He's dealt with them all. Reckons the CB one is dead simple and well sealed. Obviously no long term real world use experience on it yet though.

Not the old CB one mind!! That was a mind blowingly shit piece of 'design'.

Interested in this too. Any feedback on the Crank brothers highline or X-fusion manic?

I like the idea of the cheap sealed cartridge, although they don't seem that readily available (or cheap) at the moment.
The manic being £150 also helps!

I've settled on KS Levs too.

I ended up learning to service the internal cartridges because they're not flawless and may eventually start to sag (even if you don't lift your bike by the seat when the post is down, eventually someone else will), but I've had better experiences with them than any other posts I've tried, and quad rings for the IFP are cheap.

Southpaw works fine on my carbon bars, I just had to put a few wraps of electrical tape underneath it.

The Lev!!!

I went through this dilemma recently and was going to buy a 9point8 due to the ease of service. I then heard about the Bikeyoke Revive, which did away with the complex, and prone to failure IFP plus it is fairly easy to service yourself. I bought the Revive. Cant say anything about reliability yet, but its performance so far is first class. Only been on 5 (muddy) rides with it so far.

Been looking at this too..

Gone for the Fox as I've got a deal on one & Mojo are super easy to deal with.

My old 2012 Reverb has been faultless and has only ever had a bleed. Never been serviced.

I have a couple of Levs too (both external) that also have never given me any trouble once cables were properly tensioned.

Maybe I'm really lucky but all the riders I know have never had a bad dropper that was worse than a regular service that was due by maintenance intervals, either...

I honestly only ever hear about bad droppers on the internet...

My first generation Giant one was faultless. New version warrantied the other week after 2 rides...

Have a reverb on winter hartail which gets caked in crud every week. Perfect for 3 yrs and just going for a service now as sagging and returning slowly.

Thompson for me
Two on two bikes problem free

Thomson on two bikes here, both faultless.

Crank brothers highline

yup no problems here

specialized and Reverbs were also rans....albeit for the short time before they failed

So...

Owned a Joplin and that ran for a number of years without issue and then blew a seal.

KS Lev ran that for nearly two years and that developed the little bit of bounce at the top of the stroke and was repaired. Still runs sweetly now nearly a year later under someone else.

X-Fusion HiLo - bought it used and it too blew a seal but before use! It's been running well since a repair over two years ago though and is smooth and consistent.

Specialized Command Post IRCC has been in use for about 10 months and so far it is the one I prefer. Time will tell for reliability...

My Thomson has been awful, multiple cartridge failures. My 2 Reverb have been fine despite minimal attention.
Based on that small sample pool, Reverb.

Asked my lbs same question and they said they have had every reverb back in the 2 year guarantee period, 2 out of 3 Thomson they had sold back. 50/50 on Ks, best for them specialized command post, and fox good so far but not out for that long. I bought the fox.

Not very encouraging reading on this thread.....

There are obviously more bad reviews of the reverb because they outnumber the competition substantially, however the stories of people having to have several sent back in quite close succession are hard to ignore.

I've come to the conclusion that they are all hit and miss regardless of manufacturer. So on this basis, I have just bought the cheap Brand X (wanted stealth anyway) at £115 with the 2 year warranty - and if it last over 2 years then it has paid for itself. I'm considering it as a consumable.

These only come in 30.9 so may not be an option for the OP unless used with a shim.

Only a few outings on it so far, pretty basic but it does what it says on the tin, and as well as any other.

Edit: I'm also not a fan of the reverb button remote, so I'm running the brand x with a KS remote to sit nicely with a front shifter.

Honestly gravity dropper.

Brand x come in 31.6 also .

Gravity dropper. Mine is 7 + years old and I've only stripped it once for a clean, and that includes years of Peaks rides every weekend

I have just bought a Giant one for my new HT but not ridden yet, so will report back in a couple of months.

Gravity Droppers just keep on going. For ever.
I bought mine second hand 3 or 4 years ago, and a couple of years ago I replaced the bushes and seals. Still working fine 🙂

Also I bought an X-Fusion Hi-Lo about 5 years ago. That's still going, but starting to get a bit sticky and rough. Mind you, I've never serviced it!

My highline has been good so far, no problems and the lever is excellent. You can grab the bike by the saddle at any height as well.

I got mine fairly cheap from one of the big German companies

I have not had any problems with reverbs, but I do look after them well. I' don't like how they slow down in cold weather though.
If I were looking now, it would be a fall line or a transfer.

Southpaw works fine on my carbon bars, I just had to put a few wraps of electrical tape underneath it.

I have an ancient KS i950- it's had one full "throw out half the internals and fit new ones" rebuild which cost £70 inc postage, and other than that just routine servicing, since I got it in about 2011 or 12. Spares are available, and reasonably priced, couldn't be happier with all that.

I've also got 2 reverbs, they've both failed in exactly the same way, air past IFP. But I home serviced one and fixed it, fairly simple if not quite easy. And the other got turned around in days on a warranty job. Both failed pretty soft so I'm not bothered about that. But parts are an absolute pisstake, break a lever- which is suspiciously easy to do- and they're not cheap. Still, all in all I've been pretty happy with these too and the longer drop is a bit of a killer app