Has there ever been a shonkier bike product released to the public? I am fully ‘on board’ with dropper posts so this isn’t coming from a sceptical luddite. I think dropper posts stand out in a sea of gimmicks as one of the few genuine, ride improving, innovations and I never want to go back to a normal post. I think I’d sacrifice my rear suspension for a hardtail before I gave up my Reverb (now that I have one that works).

It’s just that they are such a shocking product. Has there ever been a bike component more unreliable? More absolutely guaranteed to fail? How did it ever make it from the drawing board to the trail without someone realising that they are deeply flawed? Or did they realise and they just didn’t care?

Everyone I know who has had a Rockshox Reverb has had more than one of them. My mate works in a shop and I’ve seen the Reverb graveyard in the corner of the office. They send them off to Fishers to be warrantied two and three at a time. Granted the warranty is painless but how can they absorb such a huge rate of failure? They released an unfinished product which was guaranteed to blow up and they replace them free of charge. I hope someone involved with the Reverb project has been sacked for using consumers as guinea pigs.

I know it’s not just Rockshox who have released terribly unreliable posts so what’s the inherent problem with them? Were they just raced onto the market before they were ready to cash in on hype?

EDIT: Bollocks this was meant to go in the bike forum

Mine’s been faultless, had it a year now. Bet there’s thousands like me, just the folk don’t tend to speak up when everything is fine.

The one on the missus bike has touch wood been fine from day 1, full year of use no dramas.

All the 1st series of all posts seem to be flawed but rd 2 seems much better.

I have a KS 1st set of internals replaced worked fine for 2 years now.

I use a strip of inner tube to protect it from spray and thats it. Wash & Lube with stanchion lube after use same as forks etc.

No dramas here.

4/10
1 point docked for no use of CAPITALS
1 bonus point for posting in wrong forum

The only thing I’ve got against them is that there’s no way they are worth £200++ for what is basically half a £150 suspension fork.

How many 150 quid suspension forks are expected to hold 250 psi ?

mikewsmith – Member
The one on the missus bike has touch wood been fine from day 1, full year of use no dramas.

All the 1st series of all posts seem to be flawed but rd 2 seems much better.

I have a KS 1st set of internals replaced worked fine for 2 years now.

I use a strip of inner tube to protect it from spray and thats it. Wash & Lube with stanchion lube after use same as forks etc.

No dramas here.

POSTED 18 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Hi Mike, where did you source your KS spares from ?

Cheers !

How many 150 quid suspension forks are expected to hold 250 psi ?

All the air sprung ones. Do you actually know what it takes to hold 250psi? A 2p O ring. That’s what.
🙄

Not really though it takes the o ring and a load of well made parts I just reckon that if you take a reverb to bits it looks nothing like the inside of a 150 quid fork non of which run at 250 psi
Yes you could put it in there but it’s not designed to work at that pressure

Hwow much air pressure do you think is inside your air fork when you land off a big huck on the front wheel and bottom it out…………!

everyone i know who’s had a reverb has had to send it back 1-3 times each. i genuinely don’t know of a reverb which hasn’t been returned at some point.

a ridiculous failure rate.

Hi Mike, where did you source your KS spares from ?

It was sent back under warranty to Superstar, who passed it next door for return. Is Pure Racing still importing them?

Also it is like a suspension fork but different in some ways, few more years I’d expect the price to come down as this is still a fairly new piece of kit.

Everyone I know with a 1st gen Reverb had issues, though mostly either bleed-related or because of the fragile hose union snapping off. But they revised the design for that, the more recent ones haven’t been such prima donnas.

My KS is at least 2 years old now and the gravity dropper 3 😉 But got a new KS Lev on the way and feeling a wee bit less confident in it after seeing some others fail.

I’ve got two, one on the HT the other on the full sus. The one on my HT I’ve had for 15 months and its been faultless, the one on the FS 10 months, it just needed a bleed when I took it to the alps. Low temps and high altitude seemed to make it run slow – I replaced all the hydraulic fluid during the bleed and its been faultless ever since.

They are a brilliant piece of kit.

I also had a pure racing i7 and a much earlier i850 (cant remember if that’s what it was called – it had an hexagonal shaft) both of which I had no problems with.

1st generation post here and no issues at all as the username suggests I’m no light weight either. The seatpost barb is a naff design but 2nd gen Reverbs have been redesigned. When mine does snap I’ll get the later design. If the post fails totally I’d get another Reverb.

Suspension and disc brakes were just as unreliable in their early iterations, and heavy as well. Like any new technology, droppers will improve with time.

got an almost 2 year old 1st gen – no problems ever and not had it serviced yet either – still going fine

Not really though it takes the o ring and a load of well made parts

No. No it doesn’t. There’s a tube with a valve on top, and a simple plastic piston with an O ring round it.

JoeG – Member

Suspension and disc brakes were just as unreliable in their early iterations

True, but these aren’t early iterations, proper droper posts have been around for a decade. And tbh most companies still struggle to get their product as reliable as that first one. (except Crank Bros, they don’t even try)

I like the Reverb but they did launch it flawed. Likewise I rate my KS i900 but they’re on about their third internals iteration. Paying beta testing isn’t cool.

I may as well chime in to say that mine’s been faultless through 16 months of regular use. The only thing I’ve done (recently) was take it apart and cleaned/ changed the oil. Just preventative maintenance. Perhaps I’m in the minority.

(whoops – double post)

Ive had both of mine for 2 years and they have been faultless!

I’ve had a 1st gen reverb for over a year now and its been fine. I snapped the hose end off in a crash, but I cant really fault the seatpost itself for me crashing the bike.

Two friends have 2nd gen reverbs, and they have both been fine.

PS _ I also have 2 sets of fox forks that dont have any stantion wear , one after 6 years of use, the other after 1.5 years use.

You’d need a bit more than an O ring to hold the best part of 17bar!

Had mine for a year and its been brilliant, i jet wash my bike after nearly every ride (sensibly) and give it a squirt of fork juice, i did have a hefty crash last year that bent the rails on my seat but it did my reverb no harm.
Like someone else said, you dont hear about the ones that work fine, you only hear the complaints.

Both my. reverbs have worked perfectly from Day 1.

I have several friends with them and none have had to send them back.

12 months in and it’s still faultless for me.

Mine is 11 months old and on it’s wsy back to SRAM as we speak.

Mines a year old, it’s been used on a FS and a HT, been crashed, dropped and never serviced and works fine.

Did manage to rip the hose out of the remote during one crash, but that was easily sorted.

18 months and perfect every day

is the hose just standard brake hose?

Mine has been back to SRAM Tech twice in 26 months. There’s absolutely no way I would swap it for any other dropper post or a normal post though. Considering it has been away for less than 10 days in total, I have been very happy to have it for all the other days.

I don’t really see it any different to having a suspension fork or shock sent away for a service every year and I really can’t understand why some people get their knickers in such a twist about them.

Had mine for about 15 months, maybe a bit more…nothing wrong with it that I can tell. The shop I got it from had 2 returned with issues so suggested they send mine back as well just in case – they had a delivery of these 3 posts in at once. Came back with 160 quid work done to it but the only difference I could tell was the barb had been updated to the 2012 version.

Fitted it and I couldn’t tell any difference, still had the wee saddle wiggle when stationery…I’m guessing it had updated internals to replace the bits that may fail on the ’11 model…they hadn’t failed on mine though so I won’t know.

Really like it and it seems to have been incredibly reliable for me…gets a hose down with the rest of the bike and that s it.

Mine is 2 days old,still working fine 😀

Bent mine and was given 2nd gen replacement 🙂

NEWS JUST IN: Whining pussy thread found on STW forum !!!

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6BJJe9JV_A[/video]
as a step forward it didn’t begin ROCKSHOX/SRAM Never buy from these ****s again.

As usual we have found that there are some bad, but the manufacturer has MTFU and sorted stuff out. Like anything now my second look at a product is on the warranty, with my KS I reasoned I had 2 years if it failed twice I’d go refund and buy something else. It hasn’t 2 1/2 years later still working. When it fails I’ll get whatever is looking best. Currently a Reverb.

I have a Reverb that works but I won’t be surprised when it doesn’t.

I think the current dropper design is asking too much of an existing standard/clamping system. With all the gubbins attached, there is too little space left to build a system that can resist all of the forces whilst remaining well sealed.

How long until a new integrated standard appears?

How long until a new integrated standard appears?

Do you mean like this?

Send your frame off when it needs a service… or remove it in it’s sleeve which means it’s actually just like an… er… normal dropper seatpost 😉

Two Mk1 Reverbs went back within weeks and have been purrfect for 18 months since… prize them from my cold dead fingers only.

Love the concept and mostly it works well fro not too much weight, though there is always some lateral play (It lasted better that than the Hammerschmidt which died without SRAM supporting warranty whwn seals failed).
Reverb went back 2 twice from 2011 on and got a new one in Aug 2012. Stickiness, bust barb and lateral/fore-aft play were the faults.
How do I tell if its 2nd gen?
BTW, it is easy to shorten the hoses?