USE ti seatposts?

Am learning the pitfalls of carbon railed saddles as my new Fabric Scoop won’t fit any of my existing seatposts despite two of them having adaptors for carbon rails! Would send saddle back but have already binned packaging 😭😭

Could just get an alloy post, maybe even a Thomson, but USE do a nice 2 bolt Ti post reasonably cheap.

Am suspicious of price but it’s a bonded alloy head on a ti tube which might explain it if cheaper to make.

Any issues? Don’t know why but I’ve always been wary of USE posts….

Ta

I use a carbon USE post on my road bike with a WTB carbon railed saddle – to be honest it’s great because it was super easy to swap the adaptors to cope with oversized rails.
But you might want to check that the two bolt design will work with your saddle rails – mine has the Alien head which is a single bolt design.
USE posts are fiddly to set up…

EDIT – just had a look on the USE website – they seem to have limited stock of certain adaptor sizes – defo check you can actually get the adaptor you need!

Thanks. The model I was looking at was a twin bolt top/bottom clamp, so no adapter necessary.

Happily, after some last ditch bin raking, I found the packaging for the saddle, easier and cheaper to return saddle and buy cheaper version with normal ti rails instead 😎

👍

Have had a USE post with single bolt in the past – such a memorable turd of a component I’d not be keen on trying anything else in their range.

Recent thread on their single bolt stems suggests their USP of pointlessly reinventing the wheel, badly, is alive and well.

such a memorable turd of a component

Lol! It must be feedback like that which had made me wary.

Fabric saddles are getting hard to find, they all seem to be residing in a warehouse in Germany, thankfully found a round railed equivalent…

I’ve never had any USE components but I’ve always thought of them as a kind of British Crank Brothers. Pretty and thoughtfully designed components which are absolutely useless for their intended purpose.

15000km on mine and counting – no creaks or slippage.
To be fair that is on a road bike as I said above.

Maybe I’m just lucky…

I’ve never had any USE components but I’ve always thought of them as a kind of British Crank Brothers. Pretty and thoughtfully designed components which are absolutely useless for their intended purpose.

Generally expensive too. I have two of their Race stems, both of which cracked the faceplates despite careful use of a torque wrench, following installation instructions etc. When I went back to them they had changed the faceplate design to a double hoop version, but were adamant that there were no issues with the original one-piece, four-bolt faceplate. The replacement was around 25 quid. For perspective, the Thomson equivalent sells for £12.

A mate bought one of the Helix droppers when they were new and seemed to have endless issues with it. I had one of their Sumo posts, which had a horrible, slip-prone clamp, though better than the utra-fragile Alien one, I think their Exposure lights are brilliant, but I don’t think I’d buy a bike component from them again.

I will just add that I have their Duro Carbon seatpost on my hardtail and it has been faultless since purchase in July 2018.

Still using a Ti Use post from the 90’s on my Ti single Speed.
Post is fine, though had to make a new part for the seat clamp.

I have the carbon Sumo on my gravel bike faultless over 5000km and cost about 40 quid on their factory site. Looks nice too.

I recently bought the carbon Alien for my road bike for about £30 but I’m not so sure about that….hasn’t slipped yet but doesn’t look very robust. Looks nice though…

I had a titanium Use post once. I’m not sure what the head design was called, but it was pre-Sumo. IIRC it was a single bolt design that squeezed to metal cups onto an oval head to secure the saddle. You had to do it up really tight to stop the saddle rotating when you sat on it and this splayed the cups and seized the whole thing up.

It was a dreadful design but fortunately CRC warrantied it. Use completely ignored my email regarding the post and I’ve kept away from their products ever since.

I’ve got a carbon railed Fabric Scoop and it plays very nicely with a Thomson post. If you’re feeling particularly flush you can now get a Thomson titanium seatpost!

I had a USE Sumo ti.

As above clamp keep moving no matter how tight. Tried a new bolt etc.

Bent the post despite being a wheels in the ground rider.

Never again.

had a Ti Evo post but found the cup that sits under the rails was cutting into
the rail itself !!!

Have a carbon duro that is so seized up it’s never going to change saddle angle
without some fairly serious “attention” !!

Had an alien that sheared soooo many of those dinky little clamp bolts I gave up.

All in all use Brand X – you’re onto a better solution 😉

We’ve got 3 in the house.

I’ve got 2 Ti Sumos. The head on the first one came loose whilst still under warranty (I was trying to learn to ride flat pedals at the time and there were a new no-footed landings). Once reglued, its been fine the last 12+ years. The other I bought a couple of years back on ebay. Both have just worked, no problems with slippage. They’re silly light and (in 27.2 dia) noticeably springy which is what I like about them.

The other half has one of evo posts on her gravel bike. Doesn’t hold the saddle that tight and it slips backwards a few mm over the course of a year. Easy enough to keep an eye on and deal with as appropriate though. I think she picked it up off the USE outlet page so it wasn’t desperately spendy.

I think you’re right to be a little suspicious – I think USE kit is generally a bit over-optimised and reliant on fine engineering tolerances to function, which don’t always match up to the real world, but if you get a good one, its fine. If you want a Ti post, (and my experience is that they are very comfy, without the abrasion issues you can have with carbon if you use bikepacking bags or are a serial saddle dropper) then there’s not too many options.