It wasn't all over

Waking up at 10:52AM on Saturday kinda killed the day.  I was going to take Mike Pierce on a local ride, but the drizzle we "rode" home in the "night" before woulda made the trails a mess... I think.  I didn't need to ride my bike anyways.  Plans to go to Pisgah on Sunday with Bill Nye TSG.  I was as productive as could be, rented a movie to watch alone, wasted a half hour trying to get it to play on the on-its-last-legs DVD player, lost another twenty minutes trying to get it to play on the home computer, and then finally sat in The Pie's office watching what ended up being a cinematic turd.


Dang. Just watched that and now I want to see it again.

Anyways, bags packed and ready to ride the Dickstickel Meatplow V.6 all Enduro™'ed out.  Only a 10% chance of rain when we get there... barely breaking the 30-40% by the end of the day.

Which means that by the time Colin and Tom Tom showed up at the hatchery at 10:43AM, it was raining.  Wet all day.  Bill Nye flatted twice and no feat of scientific ingenuity could save him.  It was more of a lack of will to borrow another tube and make us stand around in the rain while he fiddled with my almost useless mini-pump.  He headed back to the car, mini-pump in hand, and missed out on the slide-a-ride down Butter Gap, Long Branch, and Cat Gap.  Cold, semi-epic'esque day in the saddle followed by beers at The Pisgah Tavern and the Special Dinner at El Chapala.

So yeah, first ride on the new drooper.  What did I think?

I would have loved to stick with a Thomson drooper.  I really liked my 31.6 post and had the 27.2 version been available, I woulda been all over it.  I didn't want to hold up the Enduro™ing of this bike though, so concessions had to be made.

KS Lev.  That's what I got.  What do I like about it?

First and foremost, it came in 27.2.

Secondly, the cable mounts to the lower part of the post which means less bad rubbie things on the frame.

That's nice.  The actuation lever is also comfortable and ergonomically a win... although it was squeaky when I installed it.  Nothing that couldn't be fixed with Luber Pen. 

100mm of droop... just enough to get the saddle out of the way so I can get way back and let the 140mm Fjox fjork do its job.

With so much to like, why does it still get my Seal of Semi-Approval?

A few things.  The installation manual (and video) are not completely updated to reflect the design of the post and in some instances a couple other procedural things.  Woulda been nice and a little reassuring.  Nothing like wasting ten minutes looking for a tiny screw that doesn't exist.

Trimming the cable to exactly 22mm past the housing?  Measure seventeen times, cut once.

I could complain about how expensive it is, but droopers are all in the "It costs how much?" zone.  Get over it or just buy a quick release seat clamp and get dropped while others droop.

And then there's this:

Wiggle.  Out of the box wiggle.  My Thomson drooper spoiled me.   It never developed any play and was just awesome like that.  This makes me sad, and I can only hope that it doesn't get worse over time.  Do I notice it while riding?  Not so much, but knowing it's there...

mind sucking.