Beggars Would Ride
Getting Down With My Own Bad Self
Speaking from a defined identity perspective, gravel is a hot mess right now. It doesn’t know what it is. Depending on who you’re talking to and where you’re talking to them, gravel is anything from “mountain biking 35 years ago” to “did you catch the Strade Bianche stage of the Giro d’Italia? That was an epic gravel throwdown by our boy Yates!” It could be mountain biking lite. It could be road biking plus. It could be both.
For the sake of my own sanity, I decided sometime last year to stop questioning this whole existential chestnut and instead ride my alleged gravel bike where and how it feels right and just enjoy myself. These exercises in defining where a sport is going and what it should be called can really get in the way of having a good time. They are best left to those who love to burn off their excess mental energy by arguing about things on the internet. I don’t have a ton of mental energy to spare, and am trying to hoard my reserves for those times when I might really need to think hard about stuff.
Not to beat a dead horse, but this is essentially "peak gravel". Sure does look like mud from way over here...
So, I’ve been riding my gravel bike in a lot of the places where I usually ride my mountain bike, except it can get pretty dicey at times. And I’ve also been riding my gravel bike in places where I would never really bother mountain biking because it’s not very exciting but it sure is scenic, and also kind of rough. And I have found that in those dicey places I really miss not being able to drop my saddle. I have also, coincidentally, found myself on some absolutely taint hammering rough dirt road descents. Those sessions have left me wishing I could just drop my saddle a little bit, in order to somewhat limit the hammering and also maybe get a slightly lower center of gravity for ripping turns. I have been thinking that a dropper post would make life a lot sweeter on the ol’ Ouroboros.
Is this heresy? I don’t know. In some circles, probably. But there are now FOUR models of Ouroboros on the Kona website, and THREE of them come with dropper posts, so if that’s any indication of where the market it going I suspect that this entire preamble just got rendered meaningless.
Time for a dropper post. Wolf Tooth to the rescue! But wait… Didn’t Dave just review the Wolf Tooth Resolve V2 post? Yes, yes he did. And didn’t Andrew review the prior version? Yep. So, I won’t get into that too much here. I went with Wolf Tooth because I dig the brand’s “right to repair” ethos, think that the quality of craftsmanship is top notch, love the fact that I can tune the amount of drop, and for reasons that I can’t articulate, am always happy to support an outfit that is trying to buck the “yet another Wintek cartridge” trend. That, and for the princely sum of 65 USD/113 CAD Wolf Tooth offers a very nicely shaped and well-built drop-bar remote.
What could possibly go wrong?
I opted for a 31.6x160mm travel post, since a 200mm post would have needed to be tuned down to 180mm to fit and I wanted to keep the added weight to a minimum. As such, the new post weighs 511 grams, compared to the 286 gram Ritchey Link seatpost it replaces. The remote adds another 37 grams, plus whatever the cable and housing weighs. The remote tucks up under and just inboard of the left side brake/shifter (in this case a SRAM Rival ETAP AXS unit) and pivots on a pair of sealed cartridge bearings. Functionally, it reminds me of of a tiny and much more cleanly executed version of the old toe-heel shifters that graced the Honda CT90s of my youth, but in this case we’re talking finger-thumb instead. When riding on the hoods, the lever is easily reached and triggered by either index or trigger finger. In the drops, a quick push of the thumb activates it. Operation is silky smooth, lever feel is light, and wrapping the bars around the lever can be a bit of a head scratcher.
Dropper remote, as seen from the pretty side...
Overall impressions: Dropper posts still rule. Maybe even more so on drop bar bikes. Everything that we take for granted about how dropper posts improved our mountain biking lives can be applied here. More control when descending steep, techy pitches. Lower center of gravity when cornering. Ability to fine tune saddle height to strike that all important balance between putting the power down and alleviating the tainthammer on washboard dirt roads. In some ways, since gravel bikes don’t generally benefit from the luxuries of great big tires and plush suspension, the addition of a dropper post here feels maybe even more decadently positive. It won’t turn your gravel bike into a full suspension mountain bike, but it will make it easier to ride faster and more comfortably everywhere. Up to a point.
Hands-eye view
I mean, it's not like hands have eyes, but you know what I mean here. Right? Okay, cool...
Inevitably, after some number of wheel punishing descents and/or a similar number of neck-cricking rough singletrack sessions, intrusive thoughts will still begin to filter in around all this newfound awesomeness. Thoughts like; “man, these long rough downhills in the drops sure do make my neck hurt. I bet some rise bars would feel pretty good about now”, or; “god damn these rock gardens are murdering my hands. I sure would love some suspension”, or; “holy shit these tires are scary.”
Which gets us back to that whole gestalt thing again. Sigh.
Drawbacks? 300ish grams of added weight. It took a couple sessions to get the lever just where I want it. Right now, in spite of appearances, the lever is unobtrusive and falls naturally to hand whether on the hoods or in the drops. I think I need to go back and add a thin layer of padding around the clamp though, and then rewrap the bars again over the padding. Sometimes (like a paragraph or so upstream), I have found myself beating the snot out of the wheels while trying to pinball my way toward some elusive smooth line through a rock garden that is doing its best to destroy my bike and my wrists simultaneously, and my hand between thumb and forefinger has not been entirely stoked on the presence of the dropper clamp just below the hood. This is only something I have noticed in situations where many questionable ride and life choices have already been made, so I wouldn’t consider it “normal”. But I bet a teeny bit of padding and a rewrap will fix it regardless.
And the not so pretty side... To be fair, these shots were taken on a first ride while I was still arguing through the whole proof of concept with myself and the wrap job had been hasty. This remote is a keeper, but a rewrap and a touch of padding (like maybe just one layer of Cinelli cork over the clamp before the snakeskin wrap goes over that) is in order. The only time I really feel it is when I am in the drops and trying to modulate braking at speed on super rough ground, and my hands start getting jackhammered up against the levers. But still, that contact gets old pretty fast! The rest of the time in the drops, my index and thumb sit just below the clamp.
So far, I have not experienced any of the self-bleed issues with the post that Dave has, and find that its action has been smooth and predictable with just the right amount of top-out “thunk” to let me know what’s going on. The only regret I have regarding the remote is that I chose not to opt for the inline cable adjuster. Kudos needs to be doled out to Kona, meanwhile, for Y-splicing the internal brake hose sleeve on the Ouroboros so that the same internal guide can be accessed from either the left or right side of the downtube. That made it super easy to finally get around to swapping my rear brake hose over to the left lever without any drama. Also, huge props to Campandgoslow. This is the third time I have (violently) rewrapped these bars now and that Western Rattler tape is still hanging tough. Absolutely would buy again in a heartbeat.
Existential musings be damned. Drop bars and dropper posts go together like peanut butter and, well, everything.
Comments
ackshunW
2 weeks, 4 days ago
!!!!!!
I too am a champion of Wolftooth. A lot of practical stuff and the right-to-repair/ small parts availability is awesome. I think they go off the rails with the number of options and configurations they sell things in; especially with the tools….but I digress.
WTH with that clamp!?! Sure the lever is nice, but those bosses on the outside ruin it, hard edges in a terrible spot. With flat bar levers, sure: robust, easily accessed clamps make sense. But on a drop bar anything is already a 2-beverage job what with all the bar wrapping. Why not have a sneaky hidden clamp, even if it meant disassembling the lever to get to it?
Reply
Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Yeah, I wondered about that too when I read this, didn't figure it'd be something I'd like, but then again I don't do drop bars on anything, so thought nothing more of it. Reading your comment though, my brain instantly came to the thought of why not just use the same sort of strap metal band like most brifters use, would be complete out the way and the very small inconvenience of not being able to undo it quickly would be far outweighed by the fact it doesn't dig into your hand.
Then again, I honestly never do understand most engineers, they seem to feel that they need to over engineer everything to justify themselves or some such, you know, reinvent the wheel instead of just improving it.
Reply
Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 4 days ago
There are a couple out there that use band clamps to alleviate that aspect of the bar crowding, but they apparently suffer from some other ergonomic issues. It's a tricky and small patch of real estate to get right, and I don't envy whoever has to design these things. Travis Engel ran a pretty comprehensive review of the leading drop bar remote contenders over on The Radavist, and nobody really came out of it unscathed: https://theradavist.com/wolf-tooth-remote-drop-bar-gravel-bike-dropper-lever-review
Reply
Briain
2 weeks ago
Also a fan of Wolftooth, but that clamp is a monstrosity. The fact there's a big bolt on the other side of the clamp poking out is just wrong. I have a Shimano pro lever on my drop bars looks identical for lever but the bolt claps at the lever. so its a way cleaner look.
Reply
Cooper Quinn
2 weeks, 4 days ago
While my 50mm post suddenly feels a bit inadequate in the presence of 160mm... 1) I can't fit a bigger post and still fit the trailer hitch and Tailfin rack mount, and 2) you can pry all 50mm of it from my cold dead hands. Dropper posts on gravel bikes rule.
Reply
fartymarty
2 weeks, 4 days ago
50mm would do nicely, just enough to make dropdecending fun.
Reply
Andy Eunson
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Gravel bikes kind of remind me of telemark skiing equipment. Narrow skis and leather boots with a three pin binding started the show. Pretty flimsy but for touring pretty comfortable and light compared with alpine touring equipment of the day. Then wider skis and beefier boots begat heavier and more robust bindings which allowed even bigger skis and bigger boots up the point where the boots are the same as AT boots, skis identical and binding more complex and far heavier. All just so one can do a certain turn with almost as much ease as someone on lighter AT stuff. They reinvented what was already in existence only it’s harder because the heel thing.
My hardtail is perfectly fine on any off-road I want to do. I had a cross bike a while back but it really was inadequate on my local gravel logging roads and single track. Sure that’s part of the attraction like telemark. Basically using the wrong tool for the job. I do lust after a gravel bike. I really do. But my practical side says it’s not going to be as useful as my hardtail.
Next thing you need on that bike is one of those really shallow drop bars that are wide. And bigger tires. And start thinking about a longer travel fork. Bigger rotors and voila! Hardtail.
Reply
Jotegir
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Free your heel and your mind will follow, Andy.
Reply
Cooper Quinn
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Especially for mixed-terrain riding, gravel bikes have a lot of advantages over a full mountain bike. It's not that you can't ride a mountain bike everywhere you can ride a gravel bike, but in a lot of places, it's the wrong bike. Being able to mix and match surfaces to connect things in interesting ways. And I would be wary of drawing too many conclusions from your time on skinny CX tires - high-volume gravel tires behave very differently.
Sure, you could do this ride on a mountain bike, but it would have taken forever (which is fine for some folks), and the S2S trail would be boring instead of a blast. Yeah, for a few bits here and there the mtb would be better, but you're sacrificing a lot elsewhere.
https://www.strava.com/activities/14885708372
All that said, if your hardtail is working great for you, that's the important part!
Reply
Andy Eunson
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Is that the route around Cloudburst? Impressive ride. I have ridden a lot of the route except for the Squamish Valley and around Cloudburst. I don’t think I could ride that far anymore without taking the rest of the season to recover.
I know I’d want mountain bike gearing for the stuff around here. And a frame and fork that took a 2.4 tire. I have that now. But with a 140 34 on it. And longer dropper.
Reply
ClydeRide
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Chamois Hagar w/ 1x GRX
50c tires
Bike Yoke Divine activated by the left brifter
2 years of happy gravel riding without giving a single eff what anybody else thinks
Reply
Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Mike, the dropper is THE BEST invention in MTB in the last 30 years, it does all you say and the less bike you're riding, the bigger difference it makes, smart move IMHO. Riding my Unit with a fixed post vs dropper, what I'll ride or try to ride is night and day, stopping to drop the saddle is just a PITA and climbing with a dropped rigid post isn't fun on the knees, so dropper post for sure.
Being lazy here, so going to ask instead of looking back for the piece on the bike, what tyres are you running, and width - IIRC I think it's the Maxxis Rambler? Curious if you've thought about maybe bumping up the tread pattern in the front to give that bit more confidence on the stuff you're "not" supposed to be riding on such a bike? Maybe something like the Conti Cross King in 29x2.0" width, they roll well, yet offer loads more grip than the Ramblers or something along those lines - I have the Ramblers on my old Monkey "commuter" and the Cross Kings on my XC wheelset in 2.2".
Reply
Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 4 days ago
700x45 Ramblers. Ideally, at some point I will go up to around 50 in whatever is the lightest, fastest tire I can find. Not a huge fan of putting bigger tires in the front (compared to the rear) since it cam dull the handling down everywhere else and at the end of the day this is still a rigid bike with drop bars. Sure, lots of people like to go mountain biking with that setup, but I am not one of them...
Reply
Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Was just a thought on the more aggressive front tyre, as well they make the least difference in rolling speed, but can offer a load of confidence gain in certain situations, even if just better edge knobs.
Reply
bikinbikinbikin
2 weeks, 4 days ago
That lever may look like a bit like motorcycle shift lever for your hands, but it REALLY looks like a Suntour Command Shifter.
Reply
fartymarty
2 weeks, 4 days ago
mmm peanut butter and banana...
I like my dropper on my dropbar Krampus. If nothing else it makes stopping at traffic lights a little more comfortable and bombing on the drops "fun".
And 100% agree about just riding your bike and not getting hung up on what "gravel" is or isn't.
Reply
Kos
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Fun read, as always. If I’m wishing for a dropper on a gravel bike, that’s a ride where I’d just as soon be on my feather-light hardtail with 100 mm fork, or maybe even my Supercaliber, which has to be the kindest, fastest gravel bike ever.
Reply
Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Well now, that must be nice and I absolutely would do that if the option existed, but for most, that's not a thing ;-) My lightest bike is 28lbs> and that's my 2008 Monkey setup as commuter with 38 Ramblers on i25 alu wheels ;-(
Reply
Vincent Edwards
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Might have to try this… here in NW Arkansas we have a lot of options for ‘mixed’ rides that include tarmac, gravel, and singletrack + doubletrack.
One change I have made to my gravel bike (2015 soma wolverine) is wider bars. Specifically, 48cm cow-chipper bars. These provide a massive improvement in confidence when navigating rough gravel descents and singletrack.
And… this hasn’t crossed my mind before but I’m intrigued by the idea of running a slightly more aggressive front tire. Like Rambler / Ravager combo.
Lastly- how are you liking your current brakes? I’m on older Apex 11-speed with Spyre calipers, and I’m ready for an update. Braking from the hoods in any kind of technical terrain is just scary. Almost 90’s mountain bike scary.
Reply
Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 3 days ago
The brakes are doing their job, more or less. Bit of an odd spec - flat mount road-ish calipers, but 180mm rotors. The bigger rotors help, for sure, there is plenty of bite and they can even be grabbed from the hoods. But I have still cooked the brakes pretty hard on some of the descents. Rough dirt roads that dump a thousand or so feet of vert at a time are a big ask. If I was building from scratch, I might opt for burlier calipers as well...
Reply
Joseph Crabtree
2 weeks, 4 days ago
I've been running a Bikeyoke Devine SL/Wolftooth drop lever combo that's worked out great. The Devine has a bit of give when dropped 10mm to help the old back and the lever is the best out there, just needs a bit of padding around the clamping bolt. I cut up an old piece of Cinelli padding that they used to send out with some of their bars.
Reply
XXX_er
2 weeks, 4 days ago
BTW my buddy the cobbler/ boot maker tells me he can no longer get those soles for the leather tele boots so those boots are going away if not already
around here a lot of roads one might ride a road bike on end in gravel or require riding gravel to do a circle route so gravel bikes are pretty useful cuz the roads suckout and back
Last week I did see a gravel biker on an easy up track at the bike area which was a 1st
Reply
Mark
2 weeks, 4 days ago
I often wonder where the whole intrusive thoughts and gestalt thing line is for myself and others. There is reward in doing the difficult thing, but where does doing the difficult thing in a more difficult way end? As I was reading the opening paragraphs I was immediately drawn to thoughts of why not have a lightweight XC whip that is probably not even slower and probably a lot more enjoyable (fun?) which is supposed to be the whole point of why we're here on this space rock anyway. This of course leads to the whole n + 1 debate, because we all know as real mtb aficionados that n = 1 is a debate best not even considered.
Maybe that line is less a single blurry line but a sea of several (many) blurred lines that overlap in some way as exceptional cases cases often be made. For example Yoann sending Dirt Murch on a road bike is the outlier case, but surely he's not taking that same bike down say Joyride. Is he? So there is a line there, somewhere. Does that extend to suffering on a gravel bike for several hours bike when a much more suitable ride is available? I honestly don't know if the division of where that line is can be made for all use cases. Maybe the better question is whether it needs to be made, as long as you're having fun. Still, I have to think that our mind has wandered down that hole sometime where we think if I just had my other bike...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvL1agpqwvE
Reply
Lynx .
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Remember watching that live when he did it during Crankworx, CrAzY Mofo. But, this lunacy impressed me even more than that run down Dirt Merchant.
https://youtu.be/7U39CsT5hrs?t=459
Reply
JohnC
2 weeks, 4 days ago
Another great review Mike; been wanting a dropper for my gravel ride but with the 27.2 seattube, that takes the Wolf Tooth out of the equation; will likely go with a PNW. Have you tried the PNW remote for comparison? (and wondering how well the wolf tooth remote would work with the PNW...assuming fine). Another reason I want a dropper is when I'm bikepacking with a heavy load; it would just be nice to drop the seat when coming to a stop and be way more stable with my loaded bike with a low saddle and both feet firmly planted.
Reply
Mike Ferrentino
2 weeks, 3 days ago
I secretly love rolling up to a stop light and squishing the seat down a few inches. Grace Jones "Pull up to the bumper" plays in my head every time. Haven't used the PNW dropper lever, so can't compare.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tc1IphRx1pk
Reply
sfellers
2 weeks, 4 days ago
The PNW drop bar lever is much less gross to look at. Could be harder to use, but not harder to look at. ha ha.
Reply
HMBA106
2 weeks, 4 days ago
My Ouro came with a 125mm dropper. Sure it’s a transx so it’s not particularly light but I feel like 125mm is a sweet spot for me. If I ever felt I needed more then the dropper would not be the limiting factor on the bike. But less would be kinda sad too. All depends on the rest of the bike and terrain I guess.
Reply
voodoobike
2 weeks, 3 days ago
Nice faux rattlesnake bar tape.
If something’s not defined, wildly diverse, rapidly changing, can’t decide how wide a tire, if it has suspension, a dropper post or not, does that make it a hot mess? I interpret a hot mess to be an undesirable thing
I enjoy all the debate and geek out on the many parts and ways to build a bike from race to bikepack. If someone wants to put a drop bar on a mountain bike then whatever. What I find dumb is “all road”.
Reply
Velocipedestrian
1 week, 6 days ago
Agree on the hot mess take, we're really discussing a fun lego experiment here.
Reply
Please log in to leave a comment.