DROPPER POSTS
Above a certain price (roughly £1,500 for full-sussers and £1,000 for hardtails), dropper seatposts are now a staple on most mountain bikes. Over the past decade, they’ve not only become easier to set up and more reliable, but the range of good options out there has ballooned to include posts for every application, from the lightweight short-travel models that are creeping into XC racing up to those with a stroke of 200mm or more. These long-drop posts have given frame designers scope to use shorter seat tubes and lower standover heights, for even better descending performance with no compromise of pedalling comfort.
These days nearly all posts have ‘stealth’ routing, meaning that the cable (or hydraulic hose, in the case of the RockShox Reverb C1) attaches to the bottom of the post and is routed internally through the frame. Modern bikes are designed for this, but if you’re retrofitting a post to an older model, be sure to check compatibility. In this test, all but the electronically-controlled RockShox Reverb AXS are cable actuated.
Installation is generally quick and easy (see p108), especially if the cable is clamped at the handlebar end, as it is on all the posts here bar the KS LEV. In a similar way to gears, cables need replacing
