Happy Feet

Aero bars on a fat bike.
The second shot shows the dropper trigger under the elbow rest

unterhausen

which dropper is that?

Happy Feet

It's a cheap one from China I picked up on Amazon. Wanted to try one out before dropping bigger money on a decent brand. I can't remember the name but it was about $150 CAD. I'm glad I did it this way as I have been able to learn about them and see what works or what I want out of one.

The post is narrow (27.2) but that was intentional so it could fit several of my bikes. I have a road/gravel bike I wanted to try it on as well. For the fatbike I added a shim. Next time I will get a wider post for this bike as I think the narrow riser post may be a weak point. But on the gravel bike it would not travel as far and probably be strong enough. It goes low, mid, and high.

It is also external routing which makes it easy for bikes that aren't set up for internal routing. Next one will be the same.

Gotta say, for being cheap it does the job it's supposed to do, though it is a little glitchy. I had to add a bungee to the return lever because the stock spring is too weak and occasionally I have to pull the seat up a bit to lock. Other than that it works.

But it's great for mtb trails. I will definitely buy a better one when this goes or before and put this one on my old 26r rigid.

Happy Feet

Another conversion I wanted to try but haven't yet is shallow dirt drops. I mtb but also tour occasionally with it so I thought that might be interesting and help increase distance/speed.

Two draw backs there.

One is the cost of changing out all the levers and the other is finding drops wide enough for leverage for mtbing. I do not like the narrow stance on downhill technical trails.

One day perhaps...

MarcusT

I had to remove my bar ends because I do bush whacking with my fattie and the bars kept on getting hung up on branches

Happy Feet

I know. I've had a few close calls but still like them too much to do without. I'm looking at some lower profile ones though that don't stick out so much.

unterhausen

There are a couple of spots on the local trails with tight squeeze between trees where I end up face down in a rotten log half the time anyway. I think people started riding more difficult trails since the heyday of bar ends.

You can get a refurb PNW seatpost right now for about $150 once you throw in the lever. They are sold out of 27.2 refurbs though, which is too bad.

Happy Feet

I definitely don't see bar ends that much on the trails that for sure.

If I were certain I wanted a dropper I would recommend a better quality one than the cheap version I bought. I wasn't sure if they were all that great (now I'm a convert) and was hooked on the idea of trying it on several bikes so it worked out as an entry level experiment.

unterhausen

Seems like people are pretty happy with PNW droppers. I'm not sure how much different they are than anonymous Chinese droppers from Ebay, but it's a real company that can overhaul old posts, so that seems like a positive thing.

elcruxio

I'll go ahead on recommend inner bar ends. You can use just regular bar ends but SQlab sells a set which is supposedly more ergonomic and absurdly expensive. You mount them inside the grips so the road position is narrower (elbows drop easier) and you won't get snagged on branches.

befleury27

sweet man