KS LEV Dropper Seat Post
Telescopic (or adjustable) seatposts are popping up (ha ha!) more and more commonly on trail oriented mountain bikes these days. Initially dismissed as a gimmick that added unnecessary weight (just like suspension and disc brakes), the tide of opinion is rapidly turning as more and more people discover the improvements to bike control and safety they offer. Getting the saddle out of the way is an obvious advantage on steep terrain, but you’ll also find big performance gains in high speed corners. By partially dropping the saddle you’ve got more room to lean the bike over, which gets the cornering blocks of your tyres biting harder into the dirt. If you think dropper posts are a gimmick, go try one for a few rides and I bet you won’t be giving it back!
Chinese manufacturer Kind Shock (KS) has been playing the telescoping game since it began and the LEV is their latest creation. Unlike most dropper posts, the remote cable is attached to the fixed lower portion (rather than the movable head), which makes the cable much tidier and easier to manage. Available in a range of diameters and lengths, our test post was the relatively common 31.6mm size with 125mm of drop. It retails for around $450 and weighs 560g with the cable and remote, making it one of the lighter dropper posts currently available.
Installing the LEV is a relatively straightforward process and the instructions are clear enough—anyone who can change a shift cable will be able to accomplish it. There are two little things to note, however. Firstly, the supplied cable outer is very stiff and replacing it with something more flexible may make routing the cable substantially easier. Secondly, the instructions talk about installing a ‘noodle’ between the remote lever and the barrel adjuster, but one isn’t supplied; you can easily make one simply by cutting a short length of outer cable.
As usual for KS posts, it uses a neat low profile remote lever. This can be mounted independently or combined with ODI lock-on grips, replacing the inner clamp—a nice feature that keeps your handlebar less cluttered and shows real attention to detail. The pressure required to activate the remote is only slightly more that with a hydraulic system and it didn’t deteriorate during the test period.
Clever Design
We’ll make no bones about it; one of the worst things about most dropper posts, which generally have the remote cable attached under the seat rails, is the fact that whenever you drop the saddle you end up with a big loop of excess cable that’s prone to rubbing on your rear tyre, your frame, or your legs. In some cases this loop also sticks out to the side making it easy to snag on passing flora, which is definitely not a good thing. KS spent several years figuring out how to operate the post from the fixed lower section, which means the cable length doesn’t change when you adjust your saddle height, hence avoiding these problems. Whilst the Rockshox Reverb Stealth also solves this problem (by attaching the cable at the bottom of the lower section of post) it requires internal cable routing and a frame specifically designed for this setup. Additionally, if you want to remove the Stealth seatpost to transport or clean your bike you’ve got to re-thread the internal cable—joy of joys! With the LEV, not only will the post fit any frame on the market, but if you ever need to remove the post you simply unclip the cable (a 20 second job) and pull the post out, leaving the cable in place for re-attachment later on—nice.
In one final bit of cleverness, KS have allowed LEV owners to orient the cable attachment point in any direction they want (in 20 degree increments). They’ve done this not by allowing the attachment point to spin, but instead by allowing the saddle clamping mechanism to turn. Undoing the cover on the schrader valve at the top of the post (which incidentally allows you to adjust the saddle’s return speed) reveals a series of ‘balls’ that sit into corresponding detents; align the lower section of post the way you want and away you go.
Happily, we can report that the LEV is not only well designed, but worked flawlessly for us in practice. There’s a tiny bit of rotational play if you twist the saddle by hand, but it’s less than we’ve seen on most other dropper posts, you can’t notice it when riding, and it didn’t increase over time. Despite some filthy wet rides the post continues to raise and lower smoothly and consistently, the remote still operates with very little pressure and the cable tension hasn’t needed adjustment. We had a little creaking from the saddle rails after the first ride, but after re-tightening the two bolt head it’s been quiet ever since.
The KS LEV is not cheap by any stretch, but its combination of relatively low weight, reliability, ease of use and excellent cable management, make it (for our money) the best all-round dropper post currently on the market. If you ride more than smooth XC terrain and can afford the LEV, we’d recommend you buy it.
Pushie Enterprises 0404 885 896 / www.kssuspension.com
