Cheap Drop Posts - worth a go?

[doctorstewie]

Evening all.
After having been deposited by my bike ( Allright it was all my own fault, but still...) face down in the dirt as the saddle punted me up the bottom over a drop off, I have been thinking about:
1/ saddle height adjustment to Ride, Trail and Downhill height.
and
2/ Having a piece of kit that does it so I don't have to get off the bike to footle.
3/ HOW MUCH????

Ahem.
So yes, bearing in mind the good stuff ( that all the folks in my club seem to have on their 8k Dales and Nukes ) goes from around 150 - 300 sovs, I was wondering if anyone's used these: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/TMARS-2015-Se ... 3391b09ab0


Cheap ( I am Scottish, what do you want from me?) and cheerful but perhaps a complete waste of sixty quid that could be saved towards a good one?
Any experiences would be interesting

 

[AndyMart]

I had a ks cable operated one which was unreliable and shite, the reverb that replaced it has performed flawlessly.

 

[doctorstewie]

Cheers Andy: apart from the unreliability, what made it shite? Did the top half wobble or not centre properly? I am not even sure what to ask

 

[AndyMart]

Horrible action, cable got contaminated and wouldn't work, in the end had to be manually lifted. The reverb just works for me. My mate has one too no problems so far.

 

[Bob]

Re:

I have to agree, I was looking in to these cheapo droppers but having now tried one a mate had I realised a much better option is to pay a couple of quid more for a well maintained 2nd hand reverb, there's more and more of them coming up for sale now as people upgrade, get newer bikes with newer droppers now coming specced on bikes etc.

 

[doctorstewie]

Not a great vote of confidence for them then ;-) Thanks for the info guys.
Anyone had any luck with them? ( Doubtful but you never know )

 

[jimo746]

I know of someone who is using the TMars dropper and seems to rate it, no issues that I'm aware of, and he's been using it frequently for a while now. I think the only comment he had was that the remote lever was a bit chunky and was worried about it being damaged in a crash etc... but so far, so good.

I opted to go for a 2nd hand Reverb, around £150 I think, that was maybe a year ago now and it's been faultless.
Personally I'd go for one with a handlebar remote, invaluable if you find yourself barrelling downhill and decide you really need that extra room to manoeuvre your butt.
Also I'd choose hydraulic/air over a cable operated one, for the same reason I'd choose hydro discs over cable discs.... they just work, and keep on working, with minimal maintenence.

 

[brocklanders023]

Re:

This comes up often on STW. The opinion seems to be that the Tmars post is ok but agricultural and can have reliability issues. There's a Raleigh one that is similar to the Tmars but with a slightly better rep.

Lot's of people like Reverbs but there's also lots of stories of them failing. Hydro cables are ok but if you damage one your ride is stuffed and replacing them is more expensive than a cable + outer.

I have a Thomson post and think it's ace. Much nicer finish than the Reverb and more solid.

The cheap posts do a job (especially if you have a 27.2mm seat post) but the more you pay, the more you get.

 

[Matthews]

Just got a RSP one (I need 27.2) and having hammered it all last week in Kirroughtree it seems to have worked fine , make sure the bung in the bottom is wound as tight as it'll go or it might not spring up properly , bit of wobble at full extension but didn't really notice whilst riding , cable's a bit short but it seemed to work fine , not infinitely adjustable but it drops fine for the drop offs and pops back up ok for riding , oh and it was £80 !

 

[jointhedotz]

Think you can pick up the OEM version of the RSP for £70ish on ebay, Seroto or something like that....thinking of one myself tbh