#droppersnotjustfordescents

#standingnotjustfordescents

“a utility bike does not have the high BB of an MTB so no issues with getting on and off or going downhill”

If you think MTBs have high bottom brackets I think you need to ride some modern ones. And you need to meet some beginner or less confident cyclists to understand my point.

I do understand your point. I don’t think you understand euro utility bikes. Ask a dutch utility rider if they need a dropper! YOu can get both feet on the floor easily while still having the right BB to seat distance.

I do understand your point. I don’t think you understand euro utility bikes. Ask a dutch utility rider if they need a dropper! YOu can get both feet on the floor easily while still having the right BB to seat distance.

So, pointing out bikes that you rarely actually see in this country, after citing a trail at GT that hasn’t existed for years, bravo sir!. 🙂

You should never have sold that Hite Rite TJ 🙂 🙂

“I do understand your point. I don’t think you understand euro utility bikes.”

My mother-in-law used to have one. It was absolutely hopeless in Brighton because unlike Holland we have lots of hills. Nice along the flat seafront though…

The fact XC racers don’t use them means nothing

It means that they have a smaller gut than the average STWer, so they have no trouble getting their weight back.

P.s. I have a hite rite…

A dropper post lets you lower the rider by 4 to 6 inches, so the CoM will be much lower.

Uh huh, and could you explain to the class how a normal seat post prevents the rider doing this?

That’s my point.

So an argument for not using a dropper is that if you don’t have one, you manually adjust your seat with the QR so much, that there’s no chance of it being left for a long time and seizing?

Excellent. Definitely unneeded tech then.

First things first, I was simply pointing out that they present maintenance challenges of their own. Usually from the sort of folk that fit stuff and ignore it until they have to deal with it.

And I never said they were unneeded, I was simply pointing out that they come with a cost and frankly watching that extractor at work on a carbon frame (they like binding to carbon) gives me the fear.

@fasthaggis take the piss all you like but that hite rite has something going for it.

Uh huh, and could you explain to the class how a normal seat post prevents the rider doing this?

Well, dropper posts generally have a lever on the handlebars that you can press and adjust the saddle height as you’re riding. This means that you can constantly adjust your saddle on rolling terrain. With a normal QR, you need to stop to adjust the saddle. That’s ok if you ride up a road and take a steep trail down because you only need to adjust the saddle once during the ride. It sucks if you ride anywhere with changeable terrain – it’s nice to lower the saddle an inch or so for rooty sections, etc, drop it six inches for steep bits, then have it at full height for climbs. On some trails, you get a constant mix of this so you’re adjusting the saddle pretty much constantly.

In one of those annoying bits of irony, I’m an average ish height bloke with relatively short legs and long body.

I tend to size up for reach (not too gnarly here in the South Downs) so end up with less than fashionable amounts of seatpost and the FS has a curvy seat tube with a bolt through it.

100mm would be the max I’d think I can get in.

Silly question but can you run a dropper at 80% height or less indefinitely?

garage-dweller, you can pretty much spec the likes of the oneup to whatever length you like out of the box.

100mm would be the max I’d think I can get in.

Silly question but can you run a dropper at 80% height or less indefinitely?

There are some quite short dropper options so you may find one that works. Also with a dropper I find sometimes on long climbs I set the seat higher than I would normally be happy to ride, sort of like a roadie position, so you might end using more. If you do need to hobble a post it is easy to limit the drop with a collar but harder to limit the extension. You could use a bit of string which would be perfectly functional but quite shonky looking.

MTB yes, gravel bike no. I like having a place to rest my gut when I’m hanging off the back….

Silly question but can you run a dropper at 80% height or less indefinitely?

Yeah but it’d be annoying if it always pops up to a ‘too high’ position. I sometimes run mine 1-2cm lower than the maximum extension when I’m climbing off road on something techy, though. That’s easy enough to adjust on the fly. But as people have suggested, there are loads of options for shorter travel posts too.

I was sold on dropper posts when I realised that I could drop the post a bit to do a mid-climb wheelie or practice manuals on long flat road sections where stopping would be annoying. But then I started using them and wonder how I managed without. YMMV of course.

MTB yes, gravel bike no. I like having a place to rest my gut when I’m hanging off the back….

Not just me then?

I have a Spesh Command Post which I think is 120mm drop. It’s also mechanically activated so seems pretty reliable and easy to repair. No fluids to bleed or leak. And it’s lighter than many.

But as most of my riding I would only adjust it once or twice a a 3 hr ride I see no point

It’s still easier, but then I have other reasons to have one. I have made some seatposts noticeably narrower in the past by raising them and lowering them manually in muddy conditions.

Could you not put a shim inside to limit the extension? Seems like an easy 3D print job.

Just had a horrific flashback to the old solution for short seat tubes which seemed to solely consist of the Titec Scoper. Droppers definitely have their plus points.

Thanks for the helpful, non combative comments – eyeing up a little dropper related treat for myself to help keep the economy going. Its probably going to be 100mm or 120mm if I can find one – got about 150mm to play with from seat rail to top of seat tube (stupid tall seat tower) 😁

Please feel free to go back to telling people why they’re wrong, I have a whiskey on the go and this thread is good entertainment in places. 🤪

Never ridden a bike with a dropper, but this thread has me intrigued. Whats the difference between this and just standing up a little bit ?

Whats the difference between this and just standing up a little bit ?

Find a steep, rough descent and drop your saddle 6″ and ride down it as fast as you can. Then raise your saddle back to normal and try riding down it at the same speed. Then find a long road climb and ride up it with your saddle at optimal height. Then try riding up it with your saddle dropped 6″.

What you’ll find is that being able to have your saddle at different heights is a big advantage on rolling terrain (i.e. where you have short steep climbs followed by rough, steep descents). Yes, I’ve seen pro XC racers ride down some crazy stuff with their saddles up high, but most of us aren’t that good.

Whats the difference between this and just standing up a little bit ?

Standing up raises your centre of gravity. If you want to turn corners, your CoG has to move to the left or right – the lower down it is, the less far it has to move, so the quicker you can change direction, just like how a metronome moves faster when the weight is lower down.

Also, if you are going down something steep then your weight has to be behind a vertical line through the front wheel, otherwise you’ll go OTB. Moving your weight back does this, but with the saddle out of the way you can move it much closer towards the rear wheel which, when you are pointing downwards, means your weight is further still from the front wheel.

It might not be immediately obvious when you first do it, but it allows you to move your body around far more in loads of ways, and once you learn how to take advantage of this you can do a lot more, quicker and better, and for most of us this means more fun.

wow i never realised having a dropper and actually using one as its
designed was such a niche market :0)

must admit i had one 4 years ago and never used it, had a few coaching sessions that have massively improved my riding, now i dont think i could ride without one now, even considering one for my gravel bike, when i decide to push its boundaries on routes i ride my mtb, having a lower cog would much aid my comfort, and fear of an otb.

I think it also depends upon the bike. Some bikes just don’t feel at all right with the saddle in a fixed position. My Yeti feels fine with a rigid post, decent to pedal on the flat, and not too much of a hindrance in twisty and descendy stuff. My Stache on the other hand, if I place the saddle in a comfortable pedaling position for flat stuff over a distance, it’s really in the way in the twisty stuff, if i swap it around so that it’s just slightly out of the way for descendy/twisty stuff, it hurts my knees when pedalling for a long period.

I feel no need or desire to have one on a road or gravel bike. That’s just dead weight for 99% of the ride.

A game changer bit of kit which i’d put into the same ‘game changer’ MTB developments as disc brakes, SPDs and suspension forks

Yes, happy to ride without any of them, but Christ they made a difference

Daffy

I think it also depends upon the bike. Some bikes just don’t feel at all right with the saddle in a fixed position.

Steeper seat angles have a big part to play there – it’s dropper posts that have enabled modern MTBs to have those angles, if you try to ride a bike with a 79 degree SA with the seat up it’s just not comfortable, the saddle is right where you don’t want it.

About time I chimed in again having started this… I really didn’t think there were many people who weren’t aware (or accepting) of the benefits of a dropper post on a mountain bike, I assumed it was pretty universal, like disc brakes and suspension forks.

Anyway, I’ve just built up a new bike – an On One Scandal, complete with a fixed Thomson post. This you may think goes against my whole argument, but it was a budget build and I thought I’d use the Scandal basically for what I’ve ended up using my gravel bike for (I didn’t expect to have both). With cost, weight, and the style of riding I had in mind, I thought I’d try it without a dropper first.

So on Sunday I did that, a quick 7 mile loop about 50% road, a gravel track climb, a bit of open hill, a hill descent, then some gravel track descending and a few bits of urban singletrack. I want a dropper. I didn’t die, or really feel like I was going to, but a fixed post just limits your body positioning so much, I think once you’ve got one on one bike, you need a dropper on all, for off road riding with any modicum of tech anyway. Bargain 30.9mm available anywhere?

I feel no need or desire to have one on a road or gravel bike. That’s just dead weight for 99% of the ride.

I’d like one on a road bike for long descents. I’d make it much easier to get low and aero. I tried that top-tube sitting thing that the pros do and I nearly had the mother of all spectacular wipeouts at 40mph. My bike’s too small and my arse is too big.

I’d liek one on my gravel bike for one tiny section near home where I need to descend a steep offroad slope to link together two paths. I can descend it with saddle full height OK, but I’m right behind the saddle when doing so, and when I reach the bottom of the slope at speed and level out the prospect of saddle-induced genital injury is always there.

And frankly, when there’s even a slight risk of genital injury involved, then the OP’s post title seems entirely sensible, even for just that 1% of my ride.

I really didn’t think there were many people who weren’t aware (or accepting) of the benefits of a dropper post on a mountain bike, I assumed it was pretty universal, like disc brakes and suspension forks.

Again, don’t confuse this place with an accurate demographic of MTBers, I don’t ride with anyone who doesn’t have a dropper post on their MTB.

I want a dropper. I didn’t die, or really feel like I was going to, but a fixed post just limits your body positioning so much

That was basically my position. After years of only riding off-road (with a dropper) I got a gravel bike last Autumn. I didn’t initially have a dropper as everyone said it wasn’t necessary. Although I did deliberately spec a bike that gave me the option. First few trips off-road on it and the saddle was just annoying. Didn’t crash, or feel like I was going to, but the saddle just got in the way of where I naturally wanted to put my body. I dare say I could learn to work around it, but why when fitting a dropper is so simple?

OK, it adds a bit of weight, but if I cared about dropping weight I wouldn’t start with the bike. I guess it is one more thing to go wrong, but I’ve never had a dropper fail on me yet and given all the other bits that can fail it’s hardly a big increase in complexity. The worst that can happen is that I have to ride home with the saddle in a sub-optimal position.