Dropper seat post

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Pale Rider

Legendary Member
Can anyone tell me about dropper seat posts?

Mounting and dismounting my trekking ebike is getting increasingly difficult.

An experiment doing so with the saddle lowered tells me having a dropper will make things much easier.

The aim being to stave off the purchase of a step through bike for as long as I can.

The current post is a Thudbuster with a shim, not sure of the size but it will be thickish - 30. whatever mm.

A brief look online shows lots of Rockshox and a few Fox posts with a choice of internal and external routing - not sure exactly what the difference is.

It will be a pity to lose the boing in the Thudbuster, so I wonder if there's a suspension dropper.

No firm budget, but it looks like I will need to spend £250 or £300 - don't really want to go much more.

Any tips/recommendations appreciated.
 
Location
Loch side.
All the droppers I've installed for customers until a few years ago, required bodyweight to drop. They shot back up without bodyweight.

This means you will have to drop it before getting off but in your case, it seems you to drop it in anyway, in order to get off.

I haven't come across any with suspension in them.

The ones with remote control comes in two varieties.
1) The hose/cable exits from the bottom of the post so that it can route internally over the BB, up the downtube and out a convenient hole somewhere by the top-tube. Many MTB frames were "dropper ready", meaning that they have the neccessary holes and routing.

2) The hose cable exits from beneath the saddle, so that you can route the cable down the seatpost, along the top tube and to the handlebars. This can be retrofitted to any bike.

All of them were available in different sizes (diameter) or were supplied with shims.

The hydraulic ones with the RockShock release is by far superior to the cable ones.

One final thing. They were all black.
 
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Pale Rider

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
All the droppers I've installed for customers until a few years ago, required bodyweight to drop. They shot back up without bodyweight.

This means you will have to drop it before getting off but in your case, it seems you to drop it in anyway, in order to get off.

I haven't come across any with suspension in them.

The ones with remote control comes in two varieties.
1) The hose/cable exits from the bottom of the post so that it can route internally over the BB, up the downtube and out a convenient hole somewhere by the top-tube. Many MTB frames were "dropper ready", meaning that they have the neccessary holes and routing.

2) The hose cable exits from beneath the saddle, so that you can route the cable down the seatpost, along the top tube and to the handlebars. This can be retrofitted to any bike.

All of them were available in different sizes (diameter) or were supplied with shims.

The hydraulic ones with the RockShock release is by far superior to the cable ones.

One final thing. They were all black.

I will probably sometimes forget to drop it on dismount, but I ought to be able to shove it down by leaning on the saddle.

My ISIS bottom bracket has a Bosch motor wrapped around it, so external routing for me.

Good chance of a neat installation because the cross bar on the bike is girder shaped.

It already has some cables hidden in the channel underneath, so if an extra one will fit it ought to pop out by the headset on its way to the handlebars.

Hydraulic it is, which leads me to this Rockshox from Chainreaction.

Looks a good price on clearance, but there are that many Rockshox models it's hard to know which one to buy.

I would rather pay a bit more if a current/newer model is better.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/rockshox-reverb-dropper-seatpost/rp-prod150237
 
Location
Loch side.
I will probably sometimes forget to drop it on dismount, but I ought to be able to shove it down by leaning on the saddle.

My ISIS bottom bracket has a Bosch motor wrapped around it, so external routing for me.

Good chance of a neat installation because the cross bar on the bike is girder shaped.

It already has some cables hidden in the channel underneath, so if an extra one will fit it ought to pop out by the headset on its way to the handlebars.

Hydraulic it is, which leads me to this Rockshox from Chainreaction.

Looks a good price on clearance, but there are that many Rockshox models it's hard to know which one to buy.

I would rather pay a bit more if a current/newer model is better.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/rockshox-reverb-dropper-seatpost/rp-prod150237
The Reverb is what you need. The only variation is cable or hydraulic, so there's no choice other than diameter.
The fancier ones are wireless, talk to on-board computers, have satnav and Bluetooth and are gluten free. Don't bother.
 

Venod

Eh up
Location
Yorkshire
I had a Thompson Dropper it was the only decent Hydraulic available in 27.2 when I needed it, a fine piece of kit never any problems available in other diameters also, apart from the obvious use of dropping it on descents, I did push it down to mount on occasions, it was controlled by a remote on the bar, the routing was external but they are available with internal routing
 
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Pale Rider

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
I had a Thompson Dropper it was the only decent Hydraulic available in 27.2 when I needed it, a fine piece of kit never any problems available in other diameters also, apart from the obvious use of dropping it on descents, I did push it down to mount on occasions, it was controlled by a remote on the bar, the routing was external but they are available with internal routing

Looks a good quality one.

Three hundred squid on Wiggle.

In budget, but Rockshox for a hundred or so less is more tempting.

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/thomson-elite-dropper-seatpost/
 

Levo-Lon

Guru
Crc do brand X posts which will suit your needs.
There robust and reliable.. And a super price.
Check post diameter, internal or external with your frame.
External are fit in 5 mins, internal can be a sod.. But much neater.

They come in various drops, you may only need 120mm as that will usually be plenty.
Longer only if you have a long seatpost, ie 250 mm out of the frame or more
Brilliant things.
https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/s?q=dropper+posts&cat=direct
 
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Levo-Lon

Guru
Looks a good quality one.

Three hundred squid on Wiggle.

In budget, but Rockshox for a hundred or so less is more tempting.

https://www.wiggle.co.uk/thomson-elite-dropper-seatpost/


The rockshox stealth are prone to failure as are many, crank brothers should be crap brothers.

See my post above, KS Lev posts cost a bit but are excellent
 
D

Deleted member 23692

Guest
Rockshox Reverbs are well renown for being prone to failure. Hydraulic system does have an advantage in that it's function isn't diminished by a convoluted hose run, but not may MTB bikes have tight turns that exploit any benefits and IMO it's an overly complicated solution to solve a simple 'problem'.

Mine came with the bike and having to bleed the damn thing just to shorten the OE hose length is so annoying.... especially for me having to buy a whole specific bleed kit to do so. It worked out cheaper (and more convenient) to convert it to cable operation, and it just as efficient in use. But even then it was prone to all the well documented Reverb problems - post sink, not returning to full height and slow return, which is a fault with the post itself and not the actuation mechanism .

Getting it serviced by SRAM is again another expense (circa £100+), so I ditched the POS and went with a ONE-UP dropper which has been faultless. Selling the shite Reverb paid for it too :smile:. Should the ONE-UP ever go wrong, then its cartridge design is an easy drop-out, drop-in £50 fix.

My other MTB has a KS Lev which again has been faultless,
 
Location
Loch side.
Rockshox Reverbs are well renown for being prone to failure. Hydraulic system does have an advantage in that it's function isn't diminished by a convoluted hose run, but not may MTB bikes have tight turns that exploit any benefits and IMO it's an overly complicated solution to solve a simple 'problem'.

Mine came with the bike and having to bleed the damn thing just to shorten the OE hose length is so annoying.... especially for me having to buy a whole specific bleed kit to do so. It worked out cheaper (and more convenient) to convert it to cable operation, and it just as efficient in use. But even then it was prone to all the well documented Reverb problems - post sink, not returning to full height and slow return, which is a fault with the post itself and not the actuation mechanism .

Getting it serviced by SRAM is again another expense (circa £100+), so I ditched the POS and went with a ONE-UP dropper which has been faultless. Selling the shite Reverb paid for it too :smile:. Should the ONE-UP ever go wrong, then its cartridge design is an easy drop-out, drop-in £50 fix.

My other MTB has a KS Lev which again has been faultless,
I think you just had a bad day or two. Bleeding the lock is hardly a chore. A small piece of fishtank pipe and a chemis syringe can do the job. Servicing is equally easy, if you're handy with a spanner.

Nevertheless, if you really have to pay GBP100 for a service, then I agree, that's too much.
 

Jody

Stubborn git
I would rather pay a bit more if a current/newer model is better.

https://www.chainreactioncycles.com/rockshox-reverb-dropper-seatpost/rp-prod150237

That's which one I bought last year. Make sure you know which side you want the remote to operate as the right left hand remote is usually more expensive than the left. Great bit of kit but some slate the reliability. *touch wood* mine has been faultless up to now.

Also make sure you know what height you want the drop (125mm/150mm) and the total length of the post is OK for the frame. Mine is within a CM or so of total insertion into the frame but it allows my saddle to go almost fully down to the frame.
 
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Pale Rider

Pale Rider

Legendary Member
Rockshox dropper post ordered from my local bike shop.

Fair play to them, they said their recommended basic cable one for about £120 would do what I need it to do 'for two or three years'.

Next step up would be Rockshox at about £180, which includes a few quid for fitting.

That would usually be included, but the hose will need to be cut to length, and apparently bleeding a Rockshox is a bit of a fiddle because you need a syringe both ends to create a vacuum.

I think it's the same post as I saw for £159 from Wiggle.

Rockshox does seems to divide opinion.

The bike shop reckons they don't give a lot of trouble.

If it does, at least I have somewhere to take it back to.

It will be interesting to see how it rides compared to the Thudbuster it's replacing.

My impression was the Thudbuster didn't do a lot, but I've never ridden the bike with a rigid post to compare.
 

DRM

Guru
Location
West Yorks
I do know that gravel racers are starting to use them, dyed in the wool traditional roadies have been known to have a complete breakdown at the thought of one on a drop bar bike !
 

fossyant

Ride It Like You Stole It!
Location
South Manchester
Blooming great bit's of kit. My wife struggles on her Full suspension MTB to get on it comfortably, as the BB is quite a bit further off the ground than her hybrid, so she drops the saddle, hops on/off and pops the saddle back up. She has an Rock Shox revurb, and I've got a X-Fusion Hi-lo SL - the X-Fusion is a doddle to service.
 
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