MTB REVIEW: KINDSHOCK SEAT POST MOVES IN

At least 6 of the Holy Wow riders have recently acquired a KS adjustable seat post. This is quite a big event, so I decided to do a bit of a write up on the product.

The riding around Rossland is very up and down, and the down can be very challenging, especially if you are perched atop your seat in pedaling height. Historically a rider would stop to lower the seat of the bike before descending. This move gets the seat out of the way and allows the rider to get lower on the bike and prevents endos and other downhill mishaps. But if the trail pitches up again, this requires another stop to raise the seat post. This causes a very stop and go type of ride.

How do you solve this problem? In the past there was a gismo called a height rite, which was a giant clothes peg spring that attached to the seat and the seat tube. When the seat was lowered the spring loaded up and then when the seat post quick release was loosened the seat popped back up to ride height. It worked but messing with the quick release while riding proved to be a dangerous thing. Along comes the adjustable on the fly seat post.

A number of companys including Crank Brothers, Rock Shox, Kind Shock (www.KSsuspension.com)and others have entered the adjustable seat post market. Holy Wow riders have embraced the KS offering because of its infinite adjust ability and bomb proof construction. Tyler at Revolution Cycles(www.revolutioncycles.ca/) in Rossland had torture tested the post ahead of time and highly recommended it. Enough said, we were in.

The i900-R is the model of choice because of the remote leaver that mounts on the handlebars. Here is the post installed on my Nomad.

Notice the slick mounting system. The Kind Shock remote integrates into the grip mount by replacing the inner lock ring of the lock on grip. This makes a convenient mount and does not take up any more room on the handle bar.

One of the best features of the KS seat post is it's ability to be adjusted to any height. Just press the red leaver on the handle bar and sit to any level you want and release the leaver. The seat will stay at that height. Hit the leaver and the seat returns to the height you set for pedaling. The posts that we are using have 125mm ( 5 inches) of total up and down movement along with the adjustment available through the use of the seat tube quick release.

The installation is pretty straight forward. Remove a grip. Take off inside grip ring and replace with KS adjust leaver. Remount grip. Zip tie cable to bike. Insert seat post, fully extended, to pedaling height. Connect cable to seat post. KS has simplified the cable connection so that cable removal and replacement is easy if necessary. Check for cable clearance in both up and down positions. THEN RIDE.