Dropper posts on bikes: What they are, how they work, and why you might need one

“When you get to the top of the climb, drop your saddle to go back down.” This was my Dad’s advice to me many moons ago, long before the invention of the dropper seatpost. He was no great cyclist, but even he knew that trying to ride downhill was much easier with the saddle out of the way. Dropper seatposts let you do this at the push of a button, and many argue that they are the biggest advance in bicycle tech in the past 20 years.

As with any bicycle tech, there is a lot of discussion and jargon around them. Do you need a mechanical, hydraulic or electronic system? What length do you need for your bike and style of riding? This guide will take you through these kinds of questions to help you decide if you need a dropper post on your bike.

A dropper post is a seatpost that can be raised and lowered as you ride. They do this by using a handlebar-mounted remote or a lever under the saddle to allow you to raise or lower your post without having to stop and get off the bike.

An office chair is probably the best analogy to understand how a dropper post works. If you are seated on the bike and pull the lever or push the button, then it will drop down. When the post is down, you need to take your weight off the saddle and pull the lever or push the button to allow it to rise back up again. Some dropper posts will allow you to hold a position somewhere in the middle, while some may only go to full extension.

Younger riders won’t remember the ritual of reaching the top of a hill before the days of dropper seatposts. You would stop as a group, and everyone would get off to unclamp their seatpost and lower it ready for the descent. The ritual would be repeated at the bottom of the hill again, to raise them for the next climb. Each time you had to carefully try to find the right height and make sure the saddle was centred to avoid chafing.

This changed in the 2010s with the rise of enduro racing. In this style of racing, where riders would take on multiple climbs and descents, and often find climbs or pedally sections in the middle of the descents, stopping to adjust your saddle height was a major headache. Riders began searching for a better way to do this, and the dropper post was born. By making seatposts with a small pneumatic cartridge inside them, riders could raise and lower the seatposts without having to get off the bike. They could also be certain that the alignment and height would not change each time, so it became much easier to maintain a proper pedalling position on the bike. The earliest posts used levers underneath the saddle to do this, but as they evolved, handlebar-mounted remotes became popular, and today lever-actuated posts are not common.

There is an argument that every type of rider could benefit from a dropper post. By lowering the saddle for descents and technical sections, the rider has more effective control of the bike, which is safer. In practice, they are most common on mountain bikes, but they can be seen on hybrids and gravel bikes, too. In fact, in road cycling, Matej Mohoric famously won the prestigious Milan-Sanremo race using the handling benefits of a dropper post to create an advantage on the final descent.

One little-publicised benefit is that they can make your bike easier to get on and off. For riders with reduced mobility, being able to lower the saddle to get on can make a huge difference to their ability to keep riding later into life or while dealing with health issues.

While these four options may sound confusing, most dropper posts share the same basic pneumatic design for the seatpost itself, and this only refers to how they are operated:

The most mechanically simple design, lever-actuated posts were the first type of dropper post to be developed. Quite simply, they use a lever underneath the saddle to raise and lower the post. This is more cumbersome and less aesthetically pleasing than a remote-operated post, but because they are simpler, these types of posts are often more affordable.

Mechanical dropper posts use a handlebar-mounted remote that is connected to the seatpost by a standard, metal gear cable. Most dropper posts sold today are of this type because they are relatively affordable, and maintenance is not too demanding.

By using a hydraulic line rather than a metal gear cable, these kinds of dropper posts boast unbeatable smoothness of operation. The downside is that the hydraulic lines will need periodic bleeding to keep them functioning correctly. This is a much more involved procedure than changing a cable, and for many riders will mean a trip to a professional mechanic to do this for them.

These are the high-tech options, replacing cables and hydraulic lines with wireless wizardry. They boast lightning speed performance and, because the remote does not need to be physically connected to the post, simple installation. The downsides are that they are significantly more expensive, heavier, and you will need to remember to keep the batteries charged to operate your seatpost.

The first thing to think about when deciding what length dropper seatpost to fit to your bike is the distance between the saddle and the frame. Once you know your ideal saddle height for pedalling, you need to measure the distance between the saddle and the frame. On mountain bikes, which these days tend to have very short seattubes, this is not usually an issue, but on other styles of bikes you may be restricted.

When selecting your seatpost, it is not just about the distance the post can move, which is called the travel. To get your correct saddle height, you need to remember to include the total height of the seatpost, including the head and the collar, which is called the stack height. If you choose a bike with a very short seattube, you may need to think about getting a seatpost long enough to reach your preferred saddle height.

Once you know what can fit in your frame, choosing the travel of your seatpost comes down to preference. Many mountain bikers like the longest travel seatpost they can find, to get the saddle as far out of the way as possible. Some may have a preferred travel amount. One thing that weight-conscious riders will want to consider is that the longer the travel, the heavier the seatpost.

Not much is the short answer. Good-quality dropper posts are designed to keep operating for multiple years without needing to be opened. As with any mechanical system, they can experience issues, which will usually require the help of a professional mechanic.

If you choose a mechanical or hydraulic system, the remote will need some maintenance. Over time, the cables operating the post may stretch, or the hydraulic line may start to take in air. You will probably notice that the post becomes less responsive when you push the remote. The mechanical system will just need a simple change of cable, while a hydraulic system will need to be bled with specialist tools to remove the air from the system. If you would like to stay ahead of issues, then it is probably worth having these systems serviced once a year.

These are actually two very different types of seatpost. A dropper post is designed to let you easily change the height of the seatpost, while a suspension seatpost is designed to hold a consistent height but allow the post to move to absorb bumps. Some of the latest generation of electronic dropper seatpost offer both types of functionality.

Yes, all of our mountain bike frames are dropper post compatible. By this, we mean that they all have cable routing in the frame to allow you to install a mechanically operated dropper post without needing to modifying it or improvise. In fact, most of the bikes and eMTBs in our Spectral, Neuron, Lux, Grand Canyon and Torque families come with dropper posts as standard. We don’t equip some of our race-focused cross-country bikes, like the Exceed, with a dropper post and you will find that some of the lower spec models may not have dropper posts to help make the bikes more affordable.

In the last ten years or so, dropper posts have become a must-have component for mountain bikes. The ability to have your seatpost at the right height for every climb and descent with no hassle is a huge deal. They can also be used on all other types of bikes, but are less common for a variety of reasons. The type of dropper post you choose, whether mechanical, hydraulic, lever-operated or electronic mainly comes down to budget and convenience.

If you are looking for a mountain bike and are unsure what type would suit you, we have created a series of buyers’ guides to help you understand the different styles of riding. If you are new to mountain biking, and not sure what discipline might suit you, our bike finder tool takes you through a series of simple questions to help you find the right kind of bike for you. If you find yourself stuck between two models, our bike comparison tool lets you compare them head-to-head.

Of course, you don’t need a dropper seatpost to enjoy your ride - mountain bikers were happily riding with fixed posts for many years before they came along. What really matters is getting out and enjoying the trails, but a dropper post can make that experience even smoother and more confident when you need it.