MR. evil
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My new adjustable seat post arrived the other day. Seeing how the weather sucks and I didn’t get to ride today I decided to post some pics and write up a review based on my initial thoughts. A more thorough review will follow once I have a few rides under my belt.
Last summer I purchased my first adjustable seat post, a Crank Brothers Joplin R and I immediately feel in love with the thing. Even though it only had 3 inches of adjustability it made an instant impact on my riding, especially going down hill and hitting drops / jumps. It was by far the best upgrade I ever made to a bike. I knew very soon that every mountain bike I ever owned from that point on would have an adjustable seat post.
Over the winter I built up a new bike, and my beloved Joplin seat post was too large for the new frame. Even though I loved the 3” drop of the Joplin I though this time I would go to a 4” drop post. My new frame has a Seatpost diameter of 27.2mm and there were only a few options for adjustable posts in that size. Two of these options that came with a 4” drop, the Gravity Dropper and Amp post and are both highly recommended. But the 4” drop versions both presented some problems for my current bike frame. They both required that you have almost 8” of exposed seat post (at full height) above the seat post collar to function. The seat post collar on my new frame is very high above the top tube and at optimum seat height I only have 7” of exposed seat post.
At this point I had a couple of options:
* settle for a 3” drop post
or
* look at the new adjustable post on the market, the RASE post.
As some of you may or may not know, the RASE seat post’s claim to fame is that is has 9 inches of adjustability. When I first looked at the RASE post my initial though was “who the hell needs to be able to adjust there post 9 inches, this is a marketing gimmick”. Even now that I own one, I still stand behind my initial though that no one needs to be able to adjust there post that much while riding. But what this post did allow was for me to get at least 4” of adjustability with only 7” of exposed seat post. That’s something that the other two posts that fit my bike (Gravity Dropper and AMP) did not allow. Once I adjusted the post to my optimal seat height, I have about 6 inches of adjustability which is pretty nice. But still over kill!
Out of the box my first impression was that this was a very well made piece of equipment. While setting the maximum height of post I got a first hand look at the inner workings. There are very few moving parts, and the design is ridiculously simple. But then again the best designs tend to be simple. The cable routing is very neat, and the handle bar mounted operation lever is bar far one of the nicest looking of all these types of posts and more importantly it works very well. So far I have only tooled around the backyard and neighborhood, but so far the thing does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
While the post is great, there are a few things that could be improved upon. The first thing is that the post is very sensitive to seat clamp pressure. If your seat clamp is too tight the post will not function properly. But once you get the seat clamp set correctly you won’t need to touch it again for a long time. It’s not like you will need to loosen it to adjust your seat height. The other issue is that the post returns from the lower drop position to the full height position very fast. Apparently the ‘R’ in ‘RASE’ stands for rapid. The spring inside the post is not dampened and it has some kick. There is actually a warning in the user manual that states improper use of the post could lead to a ‘genital injury’. Really, I’m not kidding. But unless you really screw up while using the post I don’t see this being a problem.
Here are a few pictures, sorry for the lousy background but its raining outside and I didn’t feel like carrying the bike upstairs.
Last summer I purchased my first adjustable seat post, a Crank Brothers Joplin R and I immediately feel in love with the thing. Even though it only had 3 inches of adjustability it made an instant impact on my riding, especially going down hill and hitting drops / jumps. It was by far the best upgrade I ever made to a bike. I knew very soon that every mountain bike I ever owned from that point on would have an adjustable seat post.
Over the winter I built up a new bike, and my beloved Joplin seat post was too large for the new frame. Even though I loved the 3” drop of the Joplin I though this time I would go to a 4” drop post. My new frame has a Seatpost diameter of 27.2mm and there were only a few options for adjustable posts in that size. Two of these options that came with a 4” drop, the Gravity Dropper and Amp post and are both highly recommended. But the 4” drop versions both presented some problems for my current bike frame. They both required that you have almost 8” of exposed seat post (at full height) above the seat post collar to function. The seat post collar on my new frame is very high above the top tube and at optimum seat height I only have 7” of exposed seat post.
At this point I had a couple of options:
* settle for a 3” drop post
or
* look at the new adjustable post on the market, the RASE post.
As some of you may or may not know, the RASE seat post’s claim to fame is that is has 9 inches of adjustability. When I first looked at the RASE post my initial though was “who the hell needs to be able to adjust there post 9 inches, this is a marketing gimmick”. Even now that I own one, I still stand behind my initial though that no one needs to be able to adjust there post that much while riding. But what this post did allow was for me to get at least 4” of adjustability with only 7” of exposed seat post. That’s something that the other two posts that fit my bike (Gravity Dropper and AMP) did not allow. Once I adjusted the post to my optimal seat height, I have about 6 inches of adjustability which is pretty nice. But still over kill!
Out of the box my first impression was that this was a very well made piece of equipment. While setting the maximum height of post I got a first hand look at the inner workings. There are very few moving parts, and the design is ridiculously simple. But then again the best designs tend to be simple. The cable routing is very neat, and the handle bar mounted operation lever is bar far one of the nicest looking of all these types of posts and more importantly it works very well. So far I have only tooled around the backyard and neighborhood, but so far the thing does exactly what it’s supposed to do.
While the post is great, there are a few things that could be improved upon. The first thing is that the post is very sensitive to seat clamp pressure. If your seat clamp is too tight the post will not function properly. But once you get the seat clamp set correctly you won’t need to touch it again for a long time. It’s not like you will need to loosen it to adjust your seat height. The other issue is that the post returns from the lower drop position to the full height position very fast. Apparently the ‘R’ in ‘RASE’ stands for rapid. The spring inside the post is not dampened and it has some kick. There is actually a warning in the user manual that states improper use of the post could lead to a ‘genital injury’. Really, I’m not kidding. But unless you really screw up while using the post I don’t see this being a problem.
Here are a few pictures, sorry for the lousy background but its raining outside and I didn’t feel like carrying the bike upstairs.
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Seriously, glad you're happy with the latest upgrade.
