Introducing the OneUp V3 Dropper Post

I haven’t yet, I just swapped posts across with the same (nice & super smooth) cable/housing setup (gliding on Dumonde Freehub oil). 

I prefer to use WheelsMFG cable ends, so I will certainly check out fitment as part of my review. Cool detail.

They use a Wintek cartridge like many posts - PNW, Crankbrothers, X-Fusion, Giant, e13, etc. I’ve seen a lot of issues with the SDG posts having premature wear and friction (related to the chassis not the cartridge) and experienced a number of posts that were awful right out of the box. I certainly would defend my assessment as not being hyperbole.

Apparently SDG is working to fix these issues with new, better, product on the horizon.

As you suggest, different folks will have different experiences and as with any product I can only speak to mine. As a general policy I don’t comment on other reviews on NSMB or elsewhere (occasional exceptions occur, particularly writing on my own blog).

There are many factors to consider and environment is one. The Fox Transfer/RaceFace Turbine R posts seem to be victims of this where some locales folks ride them hard and often for years without issues and others places have the opposite result. 

Either way, stoked your SDG post is working for you and I certainly wasn’t meaning to contradict your experience with the product. It’s just near the top of my do not recommend list for dropper posts.

It’s a funny example of ‘that’s mountain biking’ that generally I’m replacing SDG posts with V2 in the shop but you’re replacing V2 with SDG.

Apologies for the delayed response. Your post was in a moderation queue so I hadn't seen it before now (1:30pm PST).

"had to hop in here with any media outlet referring to our product as "hot garbage"

I will note that statements that fall under my byline reflect my opinions and experiences only. In this case, my experiences come from working as a bike mechanic and having built and serviced both Knolly and GG bikes with the SDG Tellis post as OE droppers. 

I have also installed a few Tellis posts that were sold as inexpensive take-offs when someone upgraded to a smoother option from new.  

I also ride with folks who are either in the process of upgrading a stock SDG post, or have previously done so. In terms of statistics, I'd be most interested in knowing what percentage of riders who buy a bike with an SDG Tellis dropper are still riding the post a year later. Again, my experience may be skewed, in this case by how many miles my friends tend to put on their bikes. 

I'd also be interested to know what percentage of your sales are new-in-box after-market vs. OE. 

"Furthermore, the global failure rate on it (this includes all OEM and AM warranty claims) is less than 0.4%"

I've never been involved in a warranty inquiry for an SDG post, so I can't speak to what value that statistic might hold. I've felt enough fresh-out-of-the-box SDG posts and installed enough replacements for SDG dropper post that I'm confident in my assessment. 

Typically in the shops I've worked for, warranty never came up and customers were sold a new dropper post. This could be a North Vancouver phenomenon where folks tend to have more disposable income and just want their bikes to work well. 

Clearly, from the comments here and the feedback you're receiving from riders and test writers, my experiences don't reflect every other rider's experiences. Or, though strange to me, perhaps any other test writer, rider, or mechanics experiences? 

"The current Tellis has by far the industry's lowest failure rate and has been extremely well received by many for it's simplicity and durability."

I would love to know how you calculate that.

"However there's always improvements to be made on any product and we're stoked to show what we've been up to these last 3 years developing it."

So no one presenting your new product to OEs, distributors, and dealers is acknowledging prior performance and durability issues?

"It's also part of the reason why leading OEM's continue to increase their spec with us year over year."

My understanding of the OE dropper post situation is that a number of OEM customers are no longer choosing to spec. OneUp dropper posts due to their affiliation and later purchase by PON and dimensions and price point are key factors in seeking a replacement.

"If you're interested, we can certainly get you setup with the new version as long as you can approach it with an open mind with your preconceived notions."

I wrote an extensive series on the first-generation Crankbrothers Highline Dropper Post despite my many poor experiences with their past dropper posts both as a rider and as someone who's spent most of my adult life working in the bike industry.

https://nsmb.com/articles/crankbrothers-highline-postricide-first-look/

https://nsmb.com/articles/crankbrothers-highline-dropper-follow/

https://nsmb.com/articles/crankbrothers-highline-dropper-windup/

My concern here is that Crankbrothers was beyond open in acknowledging and owning issues with their past products, whereas, apparently, in the case of the Tellis I'm the only one who has had a negative experience, or to have known anyone to have a negative experience.

> Again, my experience may be skewed, in this case by how many miles my friends tend to put on their bikes. 

Anecdotally, one of my riding friends here (Kamloops, BC) put over 3,000km on his Tellis without opening it once. My personal collection has posts from 2017 still completely functional with having only changed their keyways. This isn't isolated as I hear time and time again from customers and end users how their Tellis "simply works" and there's no reason to change it. 

We take great pride in all the effort we put into the developing the Tellis as well as our ability to listen to specific customer feedback to continue elevating the product. We genuinely value the feedback and being an extremely small brand means that we can take this into consideration and insatiate changes. For example, before the Tellis was launched, Norco was testing it and they mentioned that water had gotten in at the actuator through the seat tube. As a result of this feedback, we added two additional internal seals in addition to the main Trelleborg seal and the internal cartridge seal. 

> I've never been involved in a warranty inquiry for an SDG post

This statement seems contrary to the post being "hot garbage". I'd expect you to have a stack of warranty claims for any product capable of bringing a great brand like Guerilla Gravity to it's knees.

Out of the box some posts will feel more resistance than others, but this is standard across any product with moving pieces as variances in tolerances mean that there's an initial wear in period. Furthermore, we use PTFE Keyways instead of copper or brass which allows us to have super tight tolerances and nearly zero head slop. However, this tight tolerance certainly would add to some level of added resistance, but to us the lack of head slop is a worthwhile trade off. 

>  So no one presenting your new product to OEs, distributors, and dealers is acknowledging prior performance and durability issues?

I left the company I previously worked for in the industry because they refused to acknowledge any short comings in their product line. I joined SDG because we're small enough to listen and I'm not thick headed enough to think our product is the absolute best. Every product has a short coming. Durability simply isn't one of our shortcomings and this is based on me personally flying over 100,000 miles a year visiting consumers, dealers and distributors to talk about product. You still haven't really clearly explained what the durability or performance issues are other than you thinking that they have too much stiction out of the box. 

> My understanding of the OE dropper post situation is that a number of OEM customers are no longer choosing to spec. OneUp dropper posts due to their affiliation and later purchase by PON and dimensions and price point are key factors in seeking a replacement.

You're a bit off here. You're telling me we picked up Santa Cruz spec in 2019 because they didn't want to be affiliated with a PON owned brand? The OneUp to PON deal was only recent so while yes, some OE's may make that choice to switch MY24/25 spec due to the PON affiliation, I was referring to all the other years prior to the most recent switch. Every single YT Postman (and Postman V2) post is a Tellis (and V2). Large, multinational brands don't typically switch to using ALL your products for several years simply to not be affiliated with a competitor or for price. There's quite a few solid options out there that they could spec instead of us and for cheaper. Brands like them, Santa Cruz, Devinci, We Are One, Norco, all spec and continue to spec because they have all said the failure rate is so low that there's no reason to change. 

> My concern here is that Crankbrothers was beyond open in acknowledging and owning issues with their past products, whereas, apparently, in the case of the Tellis I'm the only one who has had a negative experience, or to have known anyone to have a negative experience.

My head isn't completely up my ass and I will gladly openly acknowledge any product issues. You haven't clearly outlined what these documented "performance and durability" issues are. Your claims above are all anecdotal, not backed by any kind of data or specific comparable cases other than generalizations about our post not being as smooth as others.

Crankbrothers had well known and documented product issues and it's great they stood up, acknowledged the issues and fixed them. 

A quick google search on "SDG Tellis Reviews" only brings up overwhelmingly positive reviews. The only negative comments on the post are the angle of the clamp hardware and it's generally average stack/overall height.

@Clapforcanadaa, I do appreciate your reply and your passion for the product. Flying around the world four times a year for your job is a lot, I hope it's an aspect that you enjoy. 

I apologize that I didn't more thoroughly explain the issues that led most folks to change posts. It's a grinding friction from new that's unresolvable through lubrication and becomes worse over time, completely down to the chassis (not a cartridge issue at all). In my experience, riders upgrade them from new or ride them to a point and then purchase a new one and this comes down to a financial decision. I'm not sure how I'd photograph that. 

In terms of wear. Next time I see one with shaft wear though, if you'd like, I can take a photograph and post it.

Regarding warranty claims, I've confirmed I'm not crazy and other shops are also recommending to customers to buy a new post rather than seek a warranty resolution for this and other price-forward OE posts. Again, this may be a North Vancouver phenomenon. I only wrench on, and write about, bikes in a tiny microcosm and recognize that. 

In terms of my evidence being anecdotal, I'm not sure what other sort of "data" I could be expected to bring to this conversation other than my imprints and experiences. I haven't made any claims about the SDG Tellis post that don't come from my experiences riding and wrenching here in North Vancouver, but they're my experiences. I'm always happy to own my opinions. 

I've taken apart, serviced and ridden a fair number of different dropper posts both wrenching in a shop and reviewing product for NSMB.com. Not just high-end options, my list includes the most budget-friendly units from PNW, X-Fusion, and RaceFace. I've done teardown pieces on BikeYoke (Revives and Divine), Wolf Tooth, FSA, e13 (coil & cartridge), PNW, Shimano Pro, OneUp V2 & V3, Reverbs, Crankbrothers Highlines, Bontrager Lines, and maybe that's it. 

I'm stoked that you are seeing so many positive reviews, but that's not going to change my experience of how the current SDG Tellis ranks relative to those other products. And unlike many review experiences, it's not just looking at one example.

I personally know more than a handful of dealers that take off certain products of complete bikes right out of the box before they go to their customs and replace these products with something they know they don't have to expect any troubles with. All of them. Not a single excuse. They take them off and sel them "second hand", never to be seen again. Their experiences with certain products is bad enough to "upgrade" bikes for customers out of their own pockets, just to know the customer us unklikely to come back with to be expected troubles.
for asll thsoe
I am obviously not going to name these "unpopular" products or brands, but it's not SDG, that I will say.
I know even more dealers and customers who do not even bother claiming in for warranty as they just buy something new, either because they know that it's likely to fail again or because they don't wanna bother with the process of going through their dealer and the whole warranty process whcih can sometimes can be really frustrating.
Then, as I am a dropper designer and a generally curious person, I can't help but ask anyone and everyone around me to just try his dropper post. When I am at shows or festivals or dealers or on vacation, in bikeparks, on the trails, the chance is big than you will see me playing with one, whenever there is one around.
It's astonishing how many people ride with defective droppers, and simply don't care or don't even know. Now thast could be because of neglect or because the product is just shitty. But when then talking to customers, it's interesting to hear what they have to say.
Now again, this is not SDG related, but I want to say that warranty rates do not neccessarily reflect what's going on in the world out there. The more affordable and convenient it is to simply replace a product with something supposedly "better", the less likely it is to actually claim it for warranty.
The more expensive, the more likely it is to file for warranty.
That applies for all products on a bike.
Just wante to share my experience of almost 15 years in daily workshop service at a bike manufacturer from 2010-2018 and as the owner of a brand, where I have been working in customer service since I started the company on a basically 24/7/365 basis.

Yes, true. Since OneUp entered the dropper game, I have considered them as our strongest competitor and one that keeps pushing us. The new OneUp V3 is hard to beat on the paper.

Keep in mind that a decision between components like OneUp or Bikeyoke posts is certainly a choice at the luxury end of the sport. No one needs any of those to enjoy riding.

“Which brings up something about the v3: is the number of pins really doubled if 2/3rds of the extra pins are not the same? It really added 33% more brass and 2x polymer pins.”

I don’t know, does it matter? I must be getting tired and jaded about writing about bikes because I had about 99 questions about the V3 and this wasn’t one.

“The V2 oversize pin kit comes with 2 larger sizes, 6 pins total: +0.02mm and +0.04mm IIRC.“ 

Yes, thanks for the correction.

.

*edit: @Justin’s link below.

Yes, it kind of does matter. If they just say "double the pins", it implies double the same kind of pins doing the same thing, which implies twice as strong/durable/whatever.

I'd think the polymer pins being present at all is more important than the "doubling". Why add them if they're not doing something different/extra vs the brass pins, otherwise there would just be 6 brass pins, truly doubled.

https://www.oneupcomponents.com/products/v2-dropper-replacement-small-parts?variant=40929950957665

@Justin thanks for the link. It seemed weird I couldn’t find it so I was just in the process of emailing OneUp. Updated site versus Luddite test writer apparently.

I had just looked up that kit for a friend in the past few weeks, so I had it handy in browser history.