Forca Vario Dropper Seatpost – Gravity dropper clone 27.2 for £65

I’m hoping they haven’t sold out as I was patiently waiting for an emaail update to tell me they were in stock. Check website yesterday and not showing any. Check this eve after work, see Paypal button and think ‘yay!’ but no stock available.

Yeah would have been nice if the email sign up worked.

The 30 day warranty doesn’t exactly instill confidence – it may be a simple mechanism but things can and do break on even the simplest of things.

Yeah would have been nice if the email sign up worked.

Check your spam folder, that’s where I saw my email yesterday.

“I’m stuck with 27.2. Seems It’s this or a Hilo”
Or a gravity dropper
Or a KindShock i7
Or a Rase Black Mamba

a 110mm drop plus a 25mm setting would be very tempting. Under £100?

Emailed to ask about stock/notification.
Reply at 21:47 saying they were out of stock due to huge demand and to check spam filter. Oddly enough, at 21:50 my notification of stock email came through.

Now I know that subscribing to stock notification system doesn’t guarantee me the goods but it is a little annoying to have waited patiently then not been able to buy. Just how many were in the batch? 3? Disregarding the actul product I’m disgruntled enough to bugger off and buy something else…

Thought I was going mad last night – received the email, went to the site but couldn’t find the pay button.

I was lucky enough to buy one of the last batch, I must say I am very happy with it.

Yes I give it a quick clean and grease after a really muddy/gritty ride but it really does take all of 5 mins.

For the price I can’t really fault it, does what it should.

Disregarding the actul product I’m disgruntled enough to bugger off and buy something else…

doubt it. you’re clearly on this thread, and indeed on the mailing list as you are a tight arse. if you were really gonna buy someting else on a whim like that then you would have done already.

Quite true. It’s cathartic to have a whinge though. 😉

🙂

Check your spam folder, that’s where I saw my email yesterday.

It arrived 10 pm last night, well after they’d all sold out. Shame, I would have bought one. 🙁

There’s amessage on Big Massive saying they were on sale at 0846 and the email subscribers got their email over 12 hours later. That’s not quite the instant sales update I was expecting!

cheap as chips product in not the best pre-sale customer service shocker…

Hi everyone.

Sorry for the confusion. I updated the website with stock. Unfortunately “daily” email shots aren’t instant enough. Seems Google Feedburner sends out updates at around 10pm. By 10pm you lot had cleared out the stock from the website, so the email was too late.

I will assemble a pre-order page once I’ve sent this batch out so those that were disappointed will get their seat post, hopefully within a month of today.

I will only buy in the amount of stock I can handle – I do not have a warehouse and employees (yet!?) so do not want to make sales I can’t fulfil in a reasonable time frame.

Thank you all for bearing with me on this. Watch out for the pre-order link in the email subscription.

If you can sell out before the people who have already expressed an interest get an opportunity to buy I think you could probably risk a bigger order with your supplier 🙂

clubber – Member

There is a law that says the product has to be fit for purpose

Yes there is but price is only an invitation to treat and there is no law that says you have to buy.

Yes there is but price is only an invitation to treat and there is no law that says you have to buy.

but if you do buy, the product must be fit for purpose. I’m not sure what your point is?

A friend of mine has been using one of these for the past six months or so. They are very simple inside but as far as he is concerned also less to go wrong. The only niggle he has is that they don’t retract as far as some of the more expensive competition and maybe 2% of the steep descents he has to physically drop the post lower in the frame. He’s been quite happy with his though.

If it had a bigger drop and was semi-reliable it would clean up

nbt – Member
but if you do buy, the product must be fit for purpose. I’m not sure what your point is?

Exactly.

£30 or £300, people are questioning why the warranty period is so short.

Perhaps the seller doesn’t want the hassle of dealing with warranty returns, and hopes 30 days will be long enough for post to work before it breaks?

Any news, signed up for email notifications and not got anything yet!

Well I’ve been using one of the vario force ones from the op since Xmas and it still works.
I believe the construction is similar.
After wet rides it gets sticky- it needs lubing intermittently.
Once the cable tension is set up it works consistently, but if it goes out for any reason mid ride you can have a post that won’t go down or worse won’t stay up- easy to adjust with allen key though.
If you ride sat down a lot I can see the metal retaining pin wearing out/becoming “grooved” where it engages in the post. Could lead to problems in the long run.
It requires a different technique to raise and lower it to the joplin I have on my other bike. Need to have weight on the saddle when pushing the lever in order for it to disengage (?due to wear as above), but it’s easy to get used to.

Hi all, apologies the 30 day warranty posted was in error. A seatpost that lasts for 31 days is probably not fit for purpose. If you break it in normal use in 12 months I will fix it (excluding wear and tear / incorrect use). Beyond 12 months full spares are held and will be cheap. I will update the website to this effect.

After wet rides it gets sticky- it needs lubing intermittently

The bushing material in the TrailDrop is different in attempt to combat this. I routinely clean and grease mine every other wet ride as per service schedule – takes 5 mins max. The dirt boot is essential in the UK.

Once the cable tension is set up it works consistently, but if it goes out for any reason mid ride you can have a post that won’t go down or worse won’t stay up- easy to adjust with allen key though.

The latest TrailDrop has a fixed cable and inline cable adjuster to make this easy to adjust on the fly.

Need to have weight on the saddle when pushing the lever in order for it to disengage

This is a ‘feature’ of the mechanical design. The spring is pushing the inner post up against the pin. With this force it is difficult to pull the pin out. Weighting the saddle counters the spring force and allows the pin to come out easily. As you say, easy to get used to and other mechanical pin seatposts are the same.

Thanks to the owners of TrailDrops for posting up their experiences 🙂

was – news I wanted to hear 🙂 Next time a shipment drops, I’ll most likely get one.

Let me know when you get stock as I am interested – cheers

Ash

Just a quick update to say my forca vario dropper failed at the seat clamp last week. The through bolt that takes the 2 bolts that clamp onto the seat rails snapped around the rear bolt hole. Probably due to the seat being too far back and me being rather heavy (92kg) as the seat rail has also bent slightly. I’ve emailed the German seller to see if a spare part is available but thought I would post up on here as a bit of a long term report.
Shame co I was enjoying using it.

Does anyone have a link of where to buy them?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/400228107736?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649#ht_5481wt_1139

Thanks toons – so about £70 all in. Probably worth a dabble.

having a dabble with a suntour pop lock remote instead of the stock lever as i can’t seem to find a comfortable position on the bars.should work, all it does is pull a cable. 12 quid from taiwain.

Any updates on availability or development of a bigger drop post?
Any more user problems?

I’m very interested in these too now as I’ve gone back to a 27.2 .

Deliberate Thread resurrection here.

Does anyone have any real life experiences? Are they available still?

I had the one from here http://www.bigmassive.co.uk/

A bit more that the Forca one but as far as I can tell pretty similar. I think they are both modeled on the GD classic.

Basically it is a well made bit of kit and does the job. Personally, and this could well just be me… I found it a bit awkward to use.

You have to apply a little bum weight to the saddle to hit the remote then you can push it down. When you want it to pop up you again apply said bum weight and stand quickly to allow it to come up and click into position.

I just found that difficult to do very quickly. I used it on local rides in Yorkshire then round trail centers in Scotland. Locally it was fine but round the trail centers where the terrain changes very quickly I didn’t think it was a fast enough system. User error?! Maybe.

I got a good deal on a GD turbo, which does not need any (pre release) weight when you want the post to go up or down. I find it a great system, much easier and I find it much faster to use on the ride.

I should mention I had tried a friends Reverb before moving to the GD. It just worked and worked fast..thats what I was after in a post. Not available in 27.2 so the GD T was my best bet. X fusion do one but the hit and miss reviews put me off.

I have come to think that spending more is a bit of a sting but worth it in the end.

EDIT: one thing I do like about these cable remotes is the fact you can look after it yourself. Simple construction and spares available. Part of the reason I chose the GD.

I purchased one of these new on ebay from a foreign supplier and had continuing problems with it from day one. At first it stuck when I did the seat clamp up (5Nm). I contacted the supplier and they suggested stripping it and increasing the spring pre load. I did this and had to remove a jammed piece of plastic whilst I was in there. Unfortunately it then started sticking on the first ride, after another strip down it was returned to the seller and another one sent out. THIS WAS EXACTLLY THE SAME. I emailed photos and videos to the supplier and eventually returned the second post. At this point the seller refused to refund or replace the part because they were unhappy that I’d given the product negative feed back. So far I’m out the price of the post and two lots of carriage charges and don’t even have the dam post! These are very poor quality supplied by a dishonest company that hides behind ebay.

Which post was this? There are different versions being sold by both uk and international sellers.

Forca, ICE v8, TMARS

Your first post on singletrack i see 🙂

I’m looking at a TMARS one.
Any reviews on this type?

Your first post on singletrack i see

It’s a bit odd to register with a forum just so you can name and shame, then not name the supplier.

Anyway, back on topic, I see that BigMassive no longer do trail droppers