BikeYoke Divine Dropper Post Reviewed

Two years ago I was very impressed by BikeYoke's Revive dropper post. In our teardown as well as on the trails it proved to be a well-designed, reliable and user-friendly post with its on-the-fly bleed function as the main differentiator. Even at around 500 CAD, I thought it was a good value proposition and gave it my recommendation.

After writing the review, I continued to use the Revive for another 10 months without any issues. Jeff at Wheelthing then performed a full service and, apart from the oil being a bit gunky, the post appeared to be in excellent condition.

BikeYoke's goal when designing this newest dropper post was to pair the reliability of the Revive with a lighter weight and a lower price. Based on the Revive chassis, the Divine has completely new internals, is 30g lighter and comes in about 40 CAD cheaper too.

Earlier, Andrew and Jeff did a teardown of the Divine and were amazed by its simplicity. I highly recommend you read it before continuing here with my experience installing and using the Divine.

Features

From a user's point of view, the most prominent feature of the Revive was the tool-free bleed on-the-fly feature. The Divine takes this feature to the next level by completely doing away with the lever and magically performing the 'reset' every time the post is fully bottomed out. Brilliant!

Otherwise, the Divine is very similar to the Revive in terms of features and focus on user-friendliness and reliability. It's available in 125, 160 and 185 mm travel and 30.9 and 31.6 diameters (but not in 34.9 mm). To further help fit the post in any frame design and size, the bottom part is rotatable and the maximum extension can be reduced in 5 mm increments using a clip-on spacer. The Divine is fully user-serviceable, does not require any proprietary tools and spare parts are readily available. Finally, it's sold with or without BikeYoke's 'Triggy' remote.

For this review I chose a 160 mm 30.9 unit to fit my trusty Giant Reign 27.5. Although I had a new Reign 29 on the way which would fit a 185 mm, I wasn't sure when it would arrive so I went with something that would fit both bikes. This turned out to be a wise decision as the pandemic delayed delivery of the new bike.

Installation

With the Divine having the exact dimensions and using the same remote as the Revive that was still on my bike, installation was a straightforward drop-in replacement. I left the supplied remote, cable and housing in their packaging and simply connected the Divine to the remote already in place. The head of the Divine is also the same as the Revive's so fitting and positioning the saddle was a matter of replicating some measurements I'd taken before.

Towards the end of the test, my new bike showed up and I did a full installation from scratch. It was exactly the same as described in my review of the Revive. The important steps are determining housing and cable length and fitting the cable to the actuator. With the help of the manual and the laser-engraved markings on the bottom of the post, it shouldn't really present any problems for the average home mechanic. Unless you accidentally drop the cable stopper in your frame's seat tube and spend far too long fishing it out. Which I absolutely didn't do.

First Impression, Take One (RTFM)

After the installation, I immediately ran into a minor hiccup; the moment I sat down on the saddle, I noticed the post sagging a bit. Riding over some bumps, it was behaving like a suspension seatpost! Unfortunately, bottoming out the post to reset it didn't help.

After some head-scratching, double-checking the cable routing and resetting the post a couple more times to no avail, I reached out to Sacki at BikeYoke. An hour later I received an email containing a careful analysis of the problem and its possible causes. Turns out that while the Revive operates at 200-250 psi, the Divine needs 300-350 psi. Go under 300 psi and the post won't be able to support your weight. After the teardown and rebuild, we had assumed the air pressure requirement would be the same as the Revive's and set it to 250 psi. Had we bothered to read the manual or check the FAQ on the BikeYoke website, we would have known. Our ignorance exposed, we quickly added some air and the problem was solved immediately. Note to self: RTFM!

Obviously, the Divine comes out of the box properly pressurized so you won't have this problem. If you want to experiment with the air pressure, a decent high pressure shock pump with a long stroke is recommended.

First Impression, Take Two

With the air pressure sorted, the Divine felt rock solid. Compared to the Revive, it's slightly less smooth and it tops out with a more audible clunk. Otherwise, everything felt very familiar after having used the Revive for over a year.

On The Trail

Out on the trails, the Divine went down when I wanted and went up when I wanted. I found the clunk at top out reassuring while riding and actually preferred it over the stealthiness of the Revive.

Testing coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic and was limited to the North Shore trails that weren't closed. I figured early morning rides on Cypress were probably the best way to avoid crowded trails. With several different droppers I've previously experienced occasional inconsistent behaviour on Cypress in late fall to early winter conditions, possibly due to quick elevation and temperature changes. Nothing serious, just inconsistent return speed and very minor sag off the top. I experienced this with the Divine at one point but, as with other posts, these minor issues were temporary. I think Cypress Mountain is my dropper post Bermuda triangle. I'm really only mentioning this because I'm struggling to say anything negative about the Divine. It's been a very reliable performer overall and simply does its job. And every time I bottom it out it gets bled without me even noticing.

Conclusion

BikeYoke may market the Divine as a cheaper and less sophisticated version of the Revive but in practice, most people will hardly notice the difference on the trail. In addition, the auto-reset makes it even more user-friendly. Reliability, serviceability and availability of spare parts are all on par with the Revive.

At a price roughly between C$370/US$270 and C$480/US$360 (depending on model), the Divine is a bit cheaper than the Revive and still a bit more expensive than some of the competition. I previously discussed the value proposition of BikeYoke in my review of the Revive and the Divine improves on that by delivering almost everything the Revive does and adding auto-reset, for less.

If you are looking for a high-quality, user-friendly and serviceable dropper post, I recommend putting the Divine on your shortlist.

Links:

BikeYoke sells directly to consumers worldwide through their website.

Canadian distribution is through S4 Suspension, US distribution through BTI.

Wheelthing right here in North Vancouver is an official BikeYoke service center.