When it comes to dropper posts, I haven’t had much luck. I’ve killed Reverbs, butchered the Giant Dropper and have only had a reliable performance from a £30 dropper from Decathlon. However, the Brand X Dropper post has changed all of that.
It’s now been on my bike for about three months and I’ve almost completely forgotten about it in that time. And that’s a good thing, a really good thing!
Brand X Dropper Post Review
It’s been so long since I’ve had a reliable dropper post that I’d almost given up on getting on – especially one for under £200!
At £125 this is very much an affordable post and one that would be perfect to start out on.
The build quality of the post itself is great, but it is limited by being internally routed only which means it isn’t great for older bikes. It comes in two diameters – 30.9 and 31.6 which obviously won’t suit everyone, but it does cover a large bulk of riders out there. You’re also limited to 120mm drop, which again should be fine for a lot of us but if you’re really tall or just like to slam the seat right down then this may not be for you.
I found that trying to mount it with my Hope brakes was pretty tricky as the lever would get caught if it was placed on the stem side and would be under the grip if placed grip side. Long story short I ended up having to move everything down a bit and do some adjustments of the brake lever to get a position I really liked.
There are the classic two bolt saddle rail mounts which make the positioning of the saddle pretty easy.
Installation was relatively simple although you definitely need a good pair of cable cutters to not make a hash of it
Overall Opinion on the Brand X Dropper
So far I’ve had zero issues with this post at all. It’s been flawless on hot, dry, dusty trails and wet, muddy ones alike.
I’ve ridden it hard, had a couple of big(ish) crashes and it’s been fine every time I get back up on the bike.
If it continues to perform like this then it will undoubtedly be the best £125 I’ve ever spent on my bike, and that really is saying something! The lever does let it down quite a lot for me personally, but it works and I can’t fault it for that. There are plenty of aftermarket levers hitting the market now as well, so who knows – you may see a review of one of those coming up soon!
Would I buy it again? Yes. In a heart beat – for the price and performance you really can’t knock it. Grab yours from CRC here.
