Scrolling through Pinkbike recently, I came across one of the “Ask Pinkbike” articles where a editor or writer from Pinkbike choses questions asked in the forums and answers it in detail. The questions chosen are mostly about technical issues or someone is asking which component/setup/bike would be best for their situation. While reading a particular question about a person having dropper post issues, I saw something which I’ve seen a few times from similar questions. The last line of the question, after explaining the problem is “…or should I just buy a Reverb?”.
The Rockshox Reverb introduced in 2010 was one of the first dropper post available for mountain bikes. It wasn’t the first ever, but definitely became the most popular in the early days of dropper posts. It was popular because of its smooth action and functionality in most climates compared to other dropper posts on the market. Eight years later, in 2018, there are a lot more options.
As a mechanic for Endless Biking, I get the chance to work on a lot of different bikes and a lot of different components and since we rent out high end mountain bikes we are continually updating our rental fleet. Fox is one of the sponsors of Endless Biking, so for the most part we use Fox Transfer dropper posts. However, last year, we got some bikes in before our shipment of Fox posts so we had to run the dropper posts they came with until we got in our Kashima Coated beauties.
Wicklow, Ireland. Photo by Matt Wragg.
Since I am primarily a Downhill racer and have recently gotten into Enduro racing, I have only been personally experimenting with dropper posts for the past 3-4 years. But, when you factor in my exposure to a wide assortment of components at Endless Biking and the continual personal testing of my bike setup in daily training and frequent racing I have a really good sense of how well components work. My first trail/enduro bike back in 2015 came with the KS LEV. I never had any problems with that simple dropper post. The lever felt good, the seat didn’t come up too fast or too slow, and it never sagged or had to be filled with air. My next trail/enduro bike came with another KS post, but I wasn’t very happy with this one. It was a cheaper model, so the lever felt much cheaper and the seat came up too slow. I swapped it out with a Specialized Command post, which was better. It came up a lot quicker and the lever was better quality, but it had issues holding air so I had to fill it with air every 2nd or 3rd day or else it wouldn’t come up all the way, or at all. This annoyed me and I ended up not filling it up and just pulling it up manually every time I needed it. Not ideal.
Last year, my Enduro bike came with a RockShox Reverb. I was optimistic because of their reputation and excited to have an actual working dropper post after growing tired of either having to fill up the Command post or manually pulling up the post for climbs. I had heard from other riders and mechanics who had regularly used the Reverb that you shouldn’t hang the bike by the seat when the post is all the way down. Doing so would introduce air into the hydraulic actuation of the post and over time, cause sag when the post was all the way up. I was careful not to do this the entire time I used the post, and was able to avoid sagging.
At Endless Biking, we weren’t so lucky with the Reverbs that came on some of the rental bikes. It didn’t take long for the Reverbs on the rental bikes to start having problems and the posts were coming up very slowly, even with the speed set to the highest setting. Most of the bikes that had the Reverb posts came with bleed kits, so I started bleeding the posts which seemed to fix the problem temporarily. Unfortunately, the natural place to pick up a bike to put it in the back of the car, truck, or bike rack, is to grab it by the stem/bar, and the seat or seat post.
Most of our customers weren’t aware of the issues with the Reverb and ended up lifting the bikes by the seat and extending the seat post without pressing the lever, which caused air to get into the internal hydraulic system. Unfortunately, this couldn’t be fixed by just a simple bleed. By the time we started warning people to not lift the bike by the seat while the seat post was down, it was too late and it didn’t take long before all of the Reverbs in the shop were sagging and were extremely slow to come up. Fortunately, this was covered by warranty, so before we sold the bikes at the end of the season with all the stock components, all the posts were sent back to get serviced.
My Reverb post was having a different issue. Even though I had remembered to never lift my bike by the seat while the Reverb was on, I still had issues with the post. If it was cold, the post would come up a slowly and even in average temperature the post didn’t operate smoothly. After a few months of use, it became very sticky and rough going up and down. This was especially frustrating when I was in a race where I had my seat up for a long climb and wanted to get it out of the way quickly for a decent. I had to put a lot of effort in to make the seat go down, sometimes having to slam my butt down on the seat to get it to budge. I tried bleeding it, using various kinds of lube and grease, but nothing worked. I ended up sending it back for warranty as soon as I could, right after getting my Fox Transfer post.
I’ve been using the same Transfer post for almost a year now, and I have had no issues. Even in the extreme temperatures, hot or cold (below 0), it has worked flawlessly. As a Pro racer I spend more time on my bike in a month than the average rider spends in a whole season and the Transfer continues to work like it was new. The only reason I’ve had to service it was the bottom piece was broken off in my bike bag on the flight home from a race in Columbia and you couldn’t replace the part without disassembling the whole post. Thanks, United Airlines…
This leaves me wondering why people would pay $400+ for a dropper post that, even if you follow all of the do and do-not’s, might have to be sent back for warranty before the season is over. RockShox recently came out with a new lever, which is more of a 2X style lever instead of the button style that they originally come with which is a bit of an upgrade but it doesn’t solve the sag and reliability issues. Granted, some people have no choice because the Reverb comes on a lot of different bikes as part of the build kit, but when looking to upgrade or building up a bike from scratch, some people still chose the Reverb. I don’t mean to bash the RockShox Reverb and acknowledge that dropper posts are a relatively new and complicated technology with many companies still improving their design. After using the Reverb personally and seeing how it stood up to the demands of professional use and also seeing how it stood up to use in our rental fleet I cannot confirm the Reverb’s reputation and will not recommend it even for the more limited use of an average rider. This isn’t the only dropper post I can not recommend.
Another dropper post that came on some of our rental bikes that we had issues with was the RaceFace Turbine. These posts were extremely finicky to setup and if one little thing was off in the installation, the posts wouldn’t work. We had to send back a couple that had warranty issues right out of the box, but eventually we figured out how to get them to be reliable enough on the rental bikes. Fortunately, these dropper posts weren’t on the rental bikes long and as soon as the Transfer posts came in they were installed on all the bikes.
The only issue we’ve been having with Transfers are that people are over tightening the seat clamps when adjusting the seats which can cause the post not to fully extend. If tightened too much, a groove will form in the shaft of the post. I assume this would also be the case with any other types of dropper post, but I haven’t seen it, so maybe it’s best not to make assumptions.
This season, a few of our bikes came with another RaceFace post, the Aeffect, which looks to have a much better mechanism at the bottom of the post, than the Turbine. I guess we’ll see how they work when it comes time to put them on the bikes to sell at the end of the year, but for now, Transfers are my choice for the most reliable and easy to use dropper post! Perhaps, now the questions should be… should I just buy a Transfer?
