You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
I've been thinking about a new dropper and wondered what's hot nowadays. The Reverb seems good, but I'm not sure I fancy the hydraulic aspect. What about the KS Lev? What else has proved reliable in real world circumstances?
All the best,
Dom
If you can afford a Reverb, buy one.
If not, buy a Giant Contact.
Haven't touched my reverb for about the two years I've had it. Brilliant.
Coming up to 2 years on the LEV, no complaints or issues. Better design in the non stealth version, no bleeding and no cable/hose growth.
Loved my reverb till it stopped working, was one of the first generation. Have replaced with a Thomson Elite dropper, and love it even more
No reason not to get the reverb due to the hydraulics. All mine have performed faultlessly with zero maintenance other than a squirt of fork juice. Only criticism is the remote can be fragile in a crash and they're bloody expensive to fix.
Love my Lev Integra but only six weeks old so too early to give an opinion on reliability. Quality item though.
Do you still use cable brakes?
Nope, happy with hydraulic brakes! Maybe I'm thinking about the first generation Reverbs. How easy are stealth versions to set up?
In our house, there are two lev droppers and one reverb. The reverb has been replaced under warranty, both the levs are trouble free. No issue with the hydraulic lever on the reverb though.
In a perfect world, the Thomson would have a zero cable growth design (non stealth) and the ability to do a lower service at home. But the world isn't perfect so I'll stick with my lev.
kelvin - Member
Do you still use cable brakes?
Want to make a point there? Never felt the need for more power in my dropper post lever (in some ways the Lev feels easier to press the button on)
My biggest issue on the non stealth is the way the hose loops round and gets in the way on several FS frames.
First gen reverb was good, but over time lost its height. 2nd gen warranty replacement has been faultless for nearly 18 Months.
Amongst my cycling group there are many Reverbs. To my knowledge, just one has had a problem that required warranty work- and in fact was quickly replaced with a brand new post by CRC.
Every one of the five or six Giant posts of the first (non stealtheable) generation has failed at least once, three were warrantied by Giant, the others are now in the bin or the spares box as far as am aware.
Edit:
The stealth Reverb with a connectamajig that I put on my Canyon took about 10 minutes to fit in the frame and a bit longer to faff around with routing and shortening the hose( no bleeding required)
My riding group is the other way round however, in that I have got 4 mates with reverbs and I have got an old contact switch.Three of the reverbs have been replaced under warranty (one thee times!) and the other got a broken remote after a small crash and wow they are expensive! My contact switch is older than any of them,is on its seccond cable and has had one strip down when it became slow to return after a very wet Real Ale Wobble 2 years ago. Saying that it is now getting a bit of twisting play in it and so I am going to replace it with the new version. The ony thing that would make it better is a 125mm drop version.
Interesting reading. My old Giant dropper is still good, but I need a stealth version. Maybe I should make the modest choice and stick with Giant!
My 3 month old Reverb has just been replaced with new under warranty by CRC. My old 1st gen one that came on a 2nd hand bike has given up the ghost 4 times. On each occasion I have simply replaced the offending O-ring with a 10p aftermarket one. Takes about 15 mins to do. Last repair has lasted 6 months now though! However the stanchion is now wearing so not sure how much longer I can keep the old thing serviceable.
Where are you people buying your reverb remotes when you are breaking then? I snapped the push button bit out of the remote with my knee, after casing a jump, and it cost me, iirc, £6.50 to buy the bits to fix it on amazon. About 2 weeks later, i snagged the hose on a sticking out branch i hadn't seen, and snapped the "barb" the hose pushes onto. Again, it was less than a tenner to get that part.
So, not what i would call expensive (sure, an entire remote is expensive ~£60 i think) but if you manage to somehow crash hard enough to smash the entire housing, you're probably also so smashed yourself as not to care 😉
kelvin - Member Do you still use cable brakes?
Are your gears hydraulic?
Interesting reading. My old Giant dropper is still good, but I need a stealth version. Maybe I should make the modest choice and stick with Giant!
All of the issues with the original version of the contact switch were caused by crap getting through the saddle clamp however careful you are at taping all the holes etc , water settling in and corroding the alloy button on top of the gas strut. I was fed up with pulling mine apart to try and clean it and it still failed after two years.
If you run the new one in stealth mode, the said button is at the bottom and water won't be able to sit in the strut and would probably be fine.
Edit:
To be fair, Giant replaced the gas strut on mine foc even though out of warranty, but the replacement drops about 1cm when I sit on it and no amount of tweaking the cable tension or checking all correctly installed(and I have had plenty of practice in taking apart and putting together) will fix this. So I gave up and bought a Reverb
LEVs on my bikes. Good thing is that you can manually raise the post if something fails or replace the cable out on a ride, which you can't with a reverb (unless you take bleed kit with you!). I would however like to try a Thomson covert on my new stealth frame...but £300 is pretty steep so a it might have to be a LEV integra.
I think I'm liking the Lev Integra for my new build.
So... Where's the best place to source one and how much travel will suit a medium Trance Advanced 650b frame?
how much travel will suit a medium Trance Advanced 650b frame?
Right there is no "good travel" or "right amount" for a dropper. It's how much you can fit get the tape measure out and see what you have. The specs are online for how much the collar takes up of that distance.
Ok. Good advice.
You don't have to pay lots for a good Reverb if you're patient.
I bought a barely-used one through the classifieds posted in mint condition for £90 a month ago.
To protect the remote in a crash you could mount on the underside of the opposite side of the bars ie if yours in LH operated (as mine is), you can put it on the RH side but it will be underneath the bars and out of harm's way (as others had suggested when I was enquiring) - also out of the way when bike is upside down doing repairs/tweaks/punctures etc.
KS Lev Integra from bike discount.de for 214 Euros. Tempting,
No one has mentioned Thomson yet! - I've just bought a thomson over a Reverb (cost £30 more) as about 4 or 5 of my riding buddies have had reverb issues. It may be that the reverb sells more than any other dropper and only a small persentage have issue but when 30% of the people I ride with have had issues it's put me off.
Only just fitted the thomson yesterday so I'll see how it goes.
Just be careful about buying a KS from abroad, it'll have to go back to wherever it was bought for warranty work.
I bought my KS LEV from Germany, it developed the sagging issue that a lot of the earlier ones did and Jungle can't help and KS won't even respond to my requests to authorise Jungle to do the work.
It'll now be heading back to Germany, probably to be never seen again. It has been a good post though.
Thomson elite has the same issue as the reverb and others where the cable isn't static which I personally don't like. I hear it got one of the smoothest motions though and doesn't suffer from play which is why I love a covert...but can't justify the cost.
I've got two Reverbs, the oldest one is two years old and had been used I some filthy conditions and is still going fine. It's been bled once and hasn't developed too much play. The other one is only a few weeks old so can't really judge it yet.
I don't understand the fear of a hydraulic dropper. My lever is under the bars out of the way and has come through a few crashes and had been fine.
No fear of hydraulics just the massive flappy loop of hose.
which is why I love a covert...but can't justify the cost.
Mine was £195 - only a little more than a Reverb, and I got 3% cash back. ... you just need to look around for the best deal.
In the last 18 months, I have owned a KS Lev and a Reverb, running them together.
Of the two, the Lev has been easier to live with and has degraded less quickly to the point of requiring a service. It's also physically stiffer, and the spares are less of a rip off. My Reverb is currently back with fisher for warranty air loss.
Static cable of the Lev is also a winner for me.
Buying from abroad and suffering warranty problems in one of the issues with buying outside the UK distribution network. I don't see you have anything to cry about, and you really should have factored this into it when you bought it. Either send it back to Germany for them to warranty, or pay for the repairs!
Been running Specialized Command posts for a few years now. Got them on seven bikes including two IRs. Not had a problem with any of them. Use them all year round in the Peak and also on our Alps trips. Can be bought new fairly cheap on Ebay. They have also survived some nasty crashes.
I don't see you have anything to cry about, and you really should have factored this into it when you bought it. Either send it back to Germany for them to warranty, or pay for the repairs!
No crying here, just disappointed. Post was more of a warning to those thinking about buying one of the more problematic parts outside of the UK.
I have to agree that the LEV was great until then, was great in operation and very stiff. its also really easy to do a general strip/clean/regrease.
New bike has a reverb though...
I wish I'd got a Lev tbh. The Reverb's OK but I hate the lever (it tells you a lot about the ergonomics of the design that it's best fitted back to front and upside down) Reliability wise it's been OK but not as good as either of my KS posts, and I'm just waiting to break the designed-to-break-and-sell-expensive-parts lever.
i had a reverb.. it was nothing but trouble, the lever wasnt the best either.. never could get it into a decent position and the button that you press is a bit on the small side..
Ive changed over to a KS Lev integra with a southpaw lever. Ergonomically better and the post works as it should....
Looks like it'll be a Lev Integra. It also just won What MTB'S group test.
My Lev failed twice in 6 months and was refunded on the second time as it was taking a very long time to sort. Got mine from Germany which was good for price, crap for warranty work. 1st time away for about 4 weeks, 2nd time I was refunded after waiting 6
Reverb for me.
I have a tainted opinion of the Lev from the first generation Integra which was hilariously crap, and basically didn't work.
They have since address the not working aspect of the design, and the other crap bit, the lever - you can now run it with the southpaw which looks ideal.
Can't go wrong with either now, really.
I had a reverb for 8 months on my devinci and only issue was snagging remote lever on my shorts when standing up to climb, and snapping lever clean off. Remote was mounted upside down on LH side as I was running 1x10.
SRAM were great and replaced it FOC.
I've just picked up a brand new integra for £125. It's also got the new black stanchion too. Well chuffed 🙂
That's outstanding!
Best I managed on a normal one was 202 two weeks ago.
Yeah, bought it from a nice guy on pinkbike who works at a bike shop.
I've just picked up a brand new integra for £125. It's also got the new black stanchion too. Well chuffed
Never mind the price, I'm more interested to know how to track down a black one, can only find the gold stanchion ones. I even emailed KS to ask if they had plans for a black one and didn't get a response.
Black ones from bike discount de
Black ones from bike discount de
Cheers, had just been going by their images which still show gold stanchions.
Some of the new Konas have the black integra. Think the 153DL, so they're definitely around.
Have bought a Thomson after reading both good and bad reviews of the reverb, but can't be arsed bleeding them so went for the cable option
Had a reverb before my LEVs and it was nothing but trouble. Cable is so much easier IMO