Dropper Posts – Do they work yet and are they the future?

mildred – Member

That said, disk brakes aren’t essential, tubeless isn’t essential, suspension isn’t essential

I say the same thing in every dropper thread, my Soda doesn’t have any suspension but it still has a dropper post- riding without suspension can be fun, but riding without a dropper is just irritating.

basstronic – Member

I can’t ride a bike

FTFY 😛

Might have been said already but I can’t see much difference between the wiggle and merlin links.

I feel as though I have to come back on this one. I’m really surprised that so many people use these things and/or feel the need to drop their seats. I can sort of remember doing it 20 years ago, but it never occurs to me now. I’m just a mincer, obviously. Surely, they can’t be at the same level of usefulness a suspension and disc brakes though, that is plainly ridiculous. Are you sure that you users aren’t just trying to justify another expensive purchase?

the last time i rode hardcore downhill, it was with seat down and body armour – loved every minute of it.
99.9% of my riding is not hardcore and thus i rely on a QR to drop me post if i have to.

That said, im tempted to buy a reverb stealth and dropping the saddle does make descending a bit safer and more fun.

failedengineer – Member

Surely, they can’t be at the same level of usefulness a suspension and disc brakes though, that is plainly ridiculous.

Totally agree with that tbh.

Bought one because of all the raving on threads like this. Have had it for six months now and still haven’t worked out what its for. Clearly I’m not rad enough to need one…

still haven’t worked out what its for

press the button…

I still don’t really get them, as I would need more than 150mm drop on a small frame..

ride up with saddle up
ride down with saddle down
2 second job to drop the post with a QR

I get it for racing enduro, but not for just riding around

Maybe because I like the steeper stuff where you need your saddle fully dropped anyhow.

Bought a 2nd-hand Joplin, then a cheap hydraulic one and then a GD when that inevitably died. The first two were painful to live with but convinced me of their usefulness. It fits perfectly for the kind of riding I do most: constant short sharp climbs and descents, no more than 100m at a time. Before I’d just ride with my saddle too low all the time because the inefficiency was preferable to not being able to move around when it got technical.

I was the first in my area to get one and everyone was dubious at first to the added weight and usefullness (“It’d only be useful in the Alps” was a popular argument). Now they all have them, and that’s probably precisely because this isn’t the Alps.

As someone else on here said, it depends on what/where you ride. Im XC bit of AM..if I go down a steep drop I put my arse over the back of the seat, job done. If I was DH then my seat would be low all the time anyway because what downhiller rides uo hills eh? 😉

My mate has one and im sure he just uses it to show off.

I’m treating myself to a Reverb in about 2 weeks time. Looking forward to seeing how I get on with it. Some decent deals about too.

Dropper posts make riding more fun. End of discussion.

I have had 2 dropper posts, a TMARS Gravity Dropper clone and a XFusion Hilo.

The XFusion had to go back under warranty and as I had sold the TMARS I had to go back to a normal post for a bit.
I was SOOOOOOOO glad when I got my new Hilo back.

If you just do big climbs followed by big steep descents then you won’t get it, they come into their own on more flowing trails.

On my normal “little up, little down, along a bit all in the space of 1/2 a mile” type trails a dropper post allows to wring as much fun as humanly possible out of the trail.

On my normal 2 hour ride on local trails I would only lower a “normal” post three times. With a dropper it gets dropped 15 times.

Jedi rates them & hence they become must have accessory on STW, me I’m just an old luddite & clearly nowhere near rad enough

Only been riding for 3 years but love my dropper post. Dropped saddle means that the consequences for getting it wrong seem much less serious (mainly inelegant dismounts rather than being hurled off by high saddle) and a dropper post encourages you not to be lazy about dropping the post (or putting it up for climbing).

Anyway, drop seat more now, try more technical stuff, learn, ride more technical stuff, improve, ride more = happy.

I was also of the school of thought that dropper posts were unnecessary until I bought one to go on my new 29er SS. I was always pretty quick on the descents and almost never dropped the saddle because 1. I couldn’t be arsed to stop and 2. I hated it when raising the saddle again if it was even only 1mm too high or low from its optimal position. Since using one (KS Lev) I find that using my bikes without it feel really awkward on the descents. I use it a lot in tight singletrack too as you can get your centre of gravity that much lower and find I can really rail turns and I am much quicker! At least that is what Strava tells me! 🙂

KS i7r and an X-Fusion Hi-Lo on two of my bikes. Both awesome and wouldn’t be without a dropper post now.

My take on it;
Big rides in the wide open spaces? No need for a dropper.
Messing about on flowing trails (especially trail centre playgrounds)? They just make it more fun.

A prime example would be Bike Park Wales. From the top, down Sixtapod or Wibbly Wobbly, the post stays up at the top for the pedally bits, then drops for the fun. Back up when it gets pedally again. More fun. Simple, really.

+1 for CFH’s stance, for the small time I ride at trail centres it wouldn’t justify the cost

I have Reverbs on my Remedy and my 456; both have performed excellently and been well worth the money.
Right hand mounted under bar on the left so giving some protection.

As said before it depends on what / where you ride.

In terms of whether they are needed….

Some of my bikes have worked with droppers, some haven’t. My Salsa Spearfish didn’t work, the post never got used, so went back to normal post. My Cube Stereo wouldn’t ride it without, it’s up and down like a whores drawers!

Had this same discussion with the missus recently, when she swapped to a Cube Stereo 29, it came with a normal post, I offered to put a reverb on. She wasn’t sure but I convinced her to give one a try and if she didn’t like it then we’d take it off.

First couple of weeks, we hit Whinlatter, Gisburn and Llandegla, where she struggled to use the post effectively. Looking back think part of it was the new bike too. This weekend at Llandegla it clicked for her, she was using it loads, riding faster, hitting things harder, at the end of the ride she admitted, it had a made a huge positive difference and wanted to keep it.

From my experience I think you have to give them a chance and try them. You’ll either click with or you won’t but if you do, it will massively increase your enjoyment.

In terms of which post…..I’ve had a mixture of Reverbs and Command Posts over the past few years. The command post was simpler mechanically and needed less maintainence, but the reverb for me whilst a little more maintainence prone, is the slicker product and works better.

I had a GD on my bike years before it became the latest craze. I found I didn’t use it enough to justify carting the extra weight around. My bars are the same height as my seat though. Most others, as far as I can see, ride with the saddle much higher than the bars. I’m not surprised therefor that these people benefit from a DP. They are riding along the level in the same position that I would be in going down a reasonably steep slope.

Dickyboy – Member

+1 for CFH’s stance, for the small time I ride at trail centres it wouldn’t justify the cost

Trail centres are usually up or down, usually with a sign at the start to tell you! That’s the second least useful place for a dropper (the least useful being places where it’s all up or down- ie full on downhill, or really simple xc)

But “natural” trails go up and down and all over the place with no concern about your legs or even whether it’s really sensible to ride a bike on them, that’s when a dropper post can be at its best- those 10 metre technical sections in a mile of sheep track, or that wee drop off the riverbank, or that mess of roots or random steep bit that you’d ride around with your seat up

Just to sum up the points-
-nobody says you NEED one. Just like you don’t need suspension, disc brakes or gears, they are all options you have.
-if you are singlespeed/BMX stand up style pedaler, they won’t be as useful.
-they are not for alpine descents. If you’ve just spent 3 hours climbing, taking a minute to drop your seat with a QR will be a welcome relief.
-they are for trails that go up and down, up and down in short bits.
-they are not just for steep trails.
-they are great for flowy gentle descents too, as lowering your seat(a bit) makes it easier to lean the bike over further for corners and really move vertically on the bike to pump the terrain.
-they make riding more fun, as you can play with the terrain more
-they make tricky climbs easier. Say you’re riding up a hill and there’s a steep ledge halfway up. Seat up for easy seated pedaling, then drop it a bit to be able to lurch up the ledge.
-they make riding scary stuff less so and less dangerous.

I have tried it and verified that I’d rather ride a hardtail with a dropper than a full suspension without.

Dropper posts make riding more fun. End of discussion.

I agree (as long as your riding isn’t just snaking around flat woodland on a lightweight XC bike etc).

I do a bit of everything – big rides in the Peaks, trail centre stuff, 1 hour rides from my door taking in as much stupid steep stuff as my body will cope with etc. I’ve said it before but I use my Reverb almost as often as my gears and I really wouldn’t be without it because it really does make riding (for me) more enjoyable.

Example, theres a very nice but unchallenging singletrack down the side of the park at the end of my road. Pre-dropper I’d have just attacked it as fast as I could but not gone totally bonkers as its only 100m long at the most and no much elevation drop so hardly worth stopping and dropping my post for. Post-dropper I’ll knock it down just an inch or two and I’ll be launching off every root I see, hopping logs and generally just trying to be **** stupid. At the bottom I’ll simply push a button, the seat rises to normal pedally height and I’ll be on my way along the road towards the next bit of trail (which is seat slammed territory).

Obviously not everyones riding suits a dropper but for me, its a game changer.

Following this discussion with interest

99% of my riding is around Cannock which I know like the back of my hand and the other 1% is all up followed by all down in Mid-Wales

Do I need a dropper seatpost?

NO.

I’ll get my coat.

rocketman – Member

Do I need a dropper seatpost?

Nobody needs a dropper. You might appreciate it though.

It’s little to do with where you ride or what you ride, really, mostly it’s about how you ride.

For those saying you don’t need one, of course you are right, you don’t ‘need’ one, but for me they rank alongside suspension and disc brakes – both of which I don’t ‘need’ either – but all make my riding so much more enjoyable.

Pre-dropper, I was always the one faffing with my seatpost. The problem is exacerbated for me by having long legs and a short torso, so a high saddle and limited reach – getting right off the back on steeps was nigh on impossible, as the back of the saddle would be right in my nads and my arms at full stretch, giving me no control.

Other than that, simply lowering your centre of gravity on the not so steep, but swoopy stuff is absolutely the right thing to do – if you are riding with your saddle right up, you are definitely not in the optimum position for controlling your bike.

Trail centres are usually up or down, usually with a sign at the start to tell you!

Not sure I fully agree.

Some examples would include;
Odin/Gatekeeper at Cwm Carn. Pedally, swoopy, uppy downy.
R74 at CYB – Some steep stuff, some swoopy stuff. Ideal.
The end of Climachx at Mach – Again, variable terrain
Mark of Zorro at NYA – Almost perfect example, where being able to adjust on the fly really helps

As you might be able to tell, I run a Reverb on my trail centre gnarpoon, and it’s ace! When out around Salisbury Plain, or when I get round to exploring the trails around my new place, I don’t see the need for one.

mostly it’s about how you ride

Hmmm. Familiarity with my local trails means that there are no surprises and I’d like to think I ride them with some finesse rather than bluster. My saddle is at about handlebar height and I don’t feel as though dropping it would be any help because it doesn’t occur to me that it’s in the way, but I feel as though I’m maybe missing something.

Tell me about how you ride

rocketman – Member

Tell me about how you ride

Like a drunk trying to get down a flight of stairs.

Hey, i found with a dropper I can ride for longer, I think. Not bothering to raise my saddle for climbs meant I got knackered, due to inefficient pedaling or whatever, so I went home earlier.

With a dropper I am more efficient on climbs, save energy and ride longer… maybe..?

Like a drunk trying to get down a flight of stairs.

I can imagine why you might find a dropper post useful 🙂

My riding is nothing like that

I got a TMARS dropper, it’s a slightly older (and £20 cheaper) version than the one you picture.

The cable it comes with is a bit shoddy, very prone to stretching and exits the post through a nasty 90 degree bend around a steel pin. It’s very fiddly to change. If you search the forum you’ll find a thread detailing one guy’s experience (I didn’t have as much bother as him, and a standard gear cable *does* fit mine).

The cable is apparently v easy to change on the TMARS you picture BUT some folk have reported issues with the bottom of that little black box fouling the top of their seat clamp, meaning they can’t get the post in the tube far enough.

Folk have got round it by filing a flat spot on the seat clamp to afford some clearance.

After the initial bodgery, for £50 I’m happy with my post. The lever is a bit basic, the whole thing is a bit clunky but it’s light and it works.

I bought one, didn’t really ‘get it’ for a while in the UK. Went to the Alps, ‘got it’ pretty quickly. I was riding technical rocky rooty steep downhill followed by small bursts of uphill, followed by rocky rooty steep etc etc. It was invaluable, allowed flow, and allowed respite from the constant standing up.

I use it a fair bit more now in the UK, but could probably do without it for the majority of riding I do, although I wouldn’t want to.

Yes, They are “the Future”… IMO

Droppers are obviously more mechanically complex than a normal post so inevitably you will need to bleed something or change/tension a cable at some point, don’t expect to buy one fit it and never need to touch it again, but then that’s true of most parts over time…

I’m still using a HiLo on my 456 as it’s one of the few that comes in 27.2, it’s been good, for a couple of years now, I’m still happy enough with it not to want to change, but it’s not been maintenance free, easy enough to do, but it has made me appreciate the relative simplicity of certain other dropper posts…

If I was buying one tomorrow and budget was not a massive constraint, I’d be buying a Gravity Dropper over a reverb… GDs are way simpler than most others on the market now, more straight forwards to fix should it need to be, and no bleeding of anything required either… I can’t see why adding complexity to a dropper is seen as a good thing.

I use the dropper a lot more than the front derailleur.

+1 and a perfect illustration of why they are a useful component IMO…

They’re not the future, they are now.

Watching our clients, we’ve gone from a handful of riders using them 2 or 3 seasons back to over 90% this year.

They’re awesome by the way – I’ve done 2 seasons of guiding on a Reverb with no hassles at all, other than a pilot-error induced broken hose.

I like them. For those who don’t think they’d use them much, consider whether you’d change gear as often as you do now if you had to dismount and faff with the chain each time you wanted to? 🙂 The ease of operation (with a bar mounted remote) encourages you to change your saddle height in response to each bit of the trail, instead of making do with a single setting for long stretches.

I’m impressed by the guy who can stop his bike, dismount, clear the muck off his seatpost and QR, release the QR, adjust saddle height, tighten QR, remount and start off in 2 seconds!

Try riding this down anything steep with the saddle like that – albeit the forks are dropped in the pic making the front look a little lower

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Black Rocks Trig[/url] by davetheblade[/url], on Flickr

why would you. just lower the post!