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Fox has entered the electronic dropper-post market with the Transfer Neo. Travis has one arriving any day now, and will publish a review in just a few weeks. That’s when we’ll indulge in philosophical musings about what this might mean for the shifting dominances of SRAM, RockShox, Shimano, and Fox. But for now, we’ll just cover the facts.
Welcome to the first installment of Wish List, where Radavist contributors share their dreams of things that don’t exist, but maybe should. Some will be slightly niche but perfectly reasonable ideas that have every right to exist. Others will be impractical, expensive, and/or dangerous fantasies that probably should remain fantasies. Travis dives in first with a list that spans this spectrum quite nicely.
PNW Components recently released their Range Dropper Post and Range Lever. Iterating off their premium Loam dropper and lever the Range series offers a simplified and budget-friendly dropper post package. We think it’s a pretty solid deal, with the combo post + lever coming in at $199 total. Check out Spencer’s first ride review below…
The most fun addition to any bike? Ask Colt Fetters and the answer is unquestionably a dropper post. He’d argue that droppers are more fun than suspension, fancy wheels, and wireless shifting, because getting the saddle out of the way is key to maneuvering a mountain bike to its fullest potential. But for multi-day riding, running a dropper can present logistical challenges. In the following roundup, Colt reviews seven dropper-post compatible seat bags to ensure that you don’t have to compromise carrying capacity in exchange for confident descending on multi-day mountain biking missions.
Early this morning Bike Yoke posted its new 3.0 Revive dropper post on its Instagram, stating that it is still cable-actuated (yay!) and that it features 15 mm less overall length for more drop but the brand with one of the best droppers on the market failed to comment on its all-new Limited Edition Silver dropper! You know us, we’re all about silver droppers, so let’s check it out below…
The Radavist thanks 1-Up USA for sponsoring our Sea Otter Classic 2024 coverage!
Josh and John are scouring the 2024 Sea Otter Classic for interesting products, bikes, and people and we’ve got a lot more on the way but this PNW Components dropper post had us dropping our jaws…
One of our favorite dropper posts, the Fox Transfer, just got a refresh…
New from JPaks is the DropStopper dropper post collar ($22.99). No matter your dropper stanchion diameter, the DropperStopper will limit your post’s travel, protect the stanchion, a solid mounting point for a DropperPak, and function as an emergency clamp should your post lose pressure, and refuse to stay up. The included TPU shims don’t require you to measure anything at the time of ordering.
Includes: 1 -M4 stainless steel bolt + 2 TPU shims (25mm & 26mm dia compatible)
Available in 3 sizes and four flavors with a LIFETIME warranty
Check out more at JPaks.
Last month, we shared the Drop Best, a mechanism that gives a RockShox Reverb forward or reverse offset. With 27mm of offset, you can change your seat angle by 2º, i.e., from 74º to 76º. This week, Fair Bicycle, the manufacturer of the Drop Best announced three Universal Drop Best models that work on any dropper post, depending on the dropper post hardware. The UC M6 uses M6 hardware, the UC M5 uses M5, and the UC F21 is for Fox Transfer posts that use the Fox Transfer MY2021 head design.
Check out the all-new universal Drop Best models at Fair Bicycle.
Now that Wolf Tooth released the ReMote Drop-Bar dropper lever, Travis compared it to its one good (and three not-so-good) direct competitors.
MicroSHIFT, SRAM, and now Shimano all offer gravel brake levers with built-in dropper post remotes. And there are ways to hack most left shifters to work great as dropper remotes. But if you aren’t currently in the market for a new drivetrain, or if you run a front derailleur, there aren’t many good plug-and-play options that work comfortably from both the hoods and the drops. Travis Engel found just five of them, from ENVE, Crankbrothers, PRO, Easton/Fox, and Wolf Tooth. It turns out they’re all very special in their own little ways.
The target audience for a 240mm dropper post is small. Or, rather, it’s tall. Like, 95th-percentile-North-American-male tall. That may be why it took nearly two decades for one to hit the mainstream market. The world of long droppers is still pretty new, which also means it’s still pretty misunderstood. And Travis Engel learned that he had misunderstood some things until he tested OneUp’s longest post.
There’s a question you’ll inevitably hear while in Santa Fe: “Green or red?” and while this is referring to our chile color, it applies to the holidaze as well. Wolf Tooth just released two limited edition anodizing colors for its ReMote dropper levers just in time for the holidays. These are in stock and shipping today from Wolf Tooth, so act fast!
… oh and the answer to the above question is “x-mas”.
I’m going to nerd out here. Fair warning. When I see a bike like the Kona Sutra LTD hit the internet, I feel mixed emotions. Part of that has to do with my love of the now-dead “adventure” category Specialized launched a few years back, beginning with the AWOL. I had some good memories on that bike and it feels like eons ago. If you remember, this was around the time people started calling bicycle touring “bikepacking”.
The AWOL was a touring bike in the sense that it had rack mounts, clearances for, at the time, big tires and it came specced in both its Poler and Trans-Continental limited-edition build kits with racks and panniers. Sounds like a touring bike to me! While this isn’t an article about the AWOL, I can’t help but see the face-value similarities between it and the Sutra Unlimited, or LTD for short.
Now, the AWOL came out in 2014, and in these past six years, a lot has changed in the touring or bikepacking world for me but one thing remains constant: I love fat tire tourers, and the Sutra LTD really impressed me. It pulled at all the heartstrings…
Today Shimano kicked out a bunch of new dirt-related goodies, ranging from stems, handlebars, MTB dropper and yes, a gravel/XC dropper post. The Tharsis 3Five is a 100mm dropper post weighing in at 415 grams, with three post diameters (27.2, 30.9, 31.6mm), internal routing, and a 2-bolt clamp design with an MSRP of $330. Head to PRO to see more!
When riding singletrack on your gravel bike, a dropper post can certainly aid in the shredability factor of your ride. The problem is, there aren’t a lot of gravel-oriented droppers on the market. Easton has thrown their cap in the ring, announcing the EA70 AX dropper this morning. Its retail is $184.99 and the dropper offers 50mm of drop in both 350mm and 400mm lengths in a 27.2mm clamp diameter.
Note: buying this dropper will not guarantee skills like Jesse Melamed of the Rocky Mountain Race Face Enduro Team…
Ever since bikepacking really took off a few years ago, brands have been trying to design the perfect saddle pack for dropper posts. All the while, what we really needed was a new dropper post design. Then came along the DT Swiss D 232 dropper post. Its inverted design allows for you to use ANY saddle pack. There’s no need for brackets or anything special. Use your normal bikepacking saddle pack and the D 232’s inverted topper provides enough space to strap it with no issue.
It weighs a mere 369g, offers 60mm of travel, and yes, it comes in 27.2mm clamp. See more at DT Swiss.
Back in the summer of 2011, Dario took off on a solo tour, from his home town to Rome and back. This tour totaled over 2072.7km and changed the way he looked at the world. Tours and long rides on a bike are like that. Those long hours pedaling can really bring out the creative juices. The endorphins, the sights, sounds, smells, and the people you meet on the road broaden your perspective. You’ll often hear of these experiences as being life-altering and for good reason.
While in Rome, Dario met the team at Associazione Ex-Lavanderia, a bicycle frame building school and when he returned home, be began welding. Many hours were spent perfecting the art and over the past few years, Dario has had many teachers to aid his torch. Mattia (Legor), Dario Pegoretti, Gianni Gilardi and Preda, Stucchi and Perego have all passed down their knowledge to Dario.
When the time was ready, he launched Bice Bicycles where Dario builds road, all-road, gravel, touring, and mountain bikes. I was set up with a review of his most interesting offering, the Wandrian, through Biciclista, the US distributor for Bice Bicycles and Ingrid Components.
