DROP IT LOW: WHY I ADDED A DROPPER POST TO MY LITESPEED GRAVEL BIKE
We all know the hot topics in gravel. Big 2.2” tires. Faster rolling casings and rubber compounds. Narrower bar widths. Aerobars (Sorry… did you get triggered there?). And of course, comfort enhancements like suspension stems and forks. While we’ve seen huge interest in gravel suspension forks (find out why we love using suspension forks on the new suspension-corrected Litespeed gravel range), not as many riders are talking about the back end. No, not rear suspension. I’m talking about dropper posts!
You know what REALLY transforms a gravel bike into a quiver-killer? If you ask me, it’s when it’s got a dropper. That’s why I installed a dropper post on my Litespeed Ultimate G2, and it’s the best upgrade I’ve made in a long time. Let me explain why I love having a dropper post on my gravel bike—and why you might, too.
Why I Put a Dropper Post On My Litespeed Gravel Bike
Dropper seatposts came from the mountain biking world, and mountain bikers swear by them. As the name implies, dropper seatposts allow a rider to drop their saddle, instantly lowering it with the push of a button. On steep downhill terrain, moving the saddle down (and out of the way) is beneficial because it allows a rider to easily slide their weight further back, keeping that center-of-gravity low and rearward, preventing the rider from that dreaded over-the-bars experience.
Without a saddle out of the way, it’s also much easier to move around, maximize control, and traction down descents and through corners. It’s easier to maneuver through technical terrain or handle jumps. It’s also easier to save crashes with body English or by putting a foot down when things get a bit too rowdy. In a nutshell, dropper posts make riding downhill faster, safer, and a lot more fun.
Because of all these benefits, droppers make a lot of sense for the dropbar side of off-road riding. As gravel has evolved, gravel riders have started exploring more terrain where dropper posts actually make a lot of sense. On a drop-bar gravel bike, a dropper allows riders to ride down steep or technical terrain that might otherwise require them to dismount and carry their bike to get down.
There are plenty of gravel races out there that get so rough that a dropper can be a serious performance advantage. Great examples near me are Grinduro or Rock Cobbler. However, there's also a faction of gravel riders that aren’t interested in toing the start line. Rather, gravel is about exploration, finding that inner child that simply wants to find out what's behind that next bend, down that embankment, up that hill. Sometimes, those curiosities are kind of rooty, rutted, and chunky. Where I ride, they often hide technical surprises that increase the pucker factor.
Place me firmly in that category. While I love a good race, and getting the best performance out of myself that I can get, I REALLY love a big adventurous ride—one that isn’t measured in miles or vertical gain, but in the number of “oh shit” moments. If you came to gravel from mountain biking (or if you’re just an adrenaline junkie), then you might know what I'm talking about. Hitting that big rock drop. Bombing down a super loose trail full of loose babyheads. Carving across an embankment with a spiderweb of water channels, ready to make you catch an edge. Dragging brakes down a hillside steep enough to make you consider dismounting and walking down.
With a dropper, you can ride down that stuff with confidence.
How to Install a Gravel Dropper Post on a Litespeed
To do all the steep downhill I wanted, I decided I needed a dropper post on my well-used Ultimate G2. To make installing my dropper a breeze, I shipped my frame back to the Litespeed factory. Once there, one of our expert framebuilders added an extra port to the back of my seat tube that would allow me to easily route a cable for a mechanically actuated dropper (if you pony up for a fancy wireless electronic dropper like the RockShox Reverb AXS XPLR, then this is unnecessary).
If YOU want to add a dropper seatpost to your next Litespeed gravel bike, then you can request a similar port be added to your seat tube (for an additional $100 charge) in the “component requests” box on Litespeed’s custom bike builder. We can do this for framesets and complete bikes. Tell us what you want, and we’ll do our best to accommodate. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. They’re always ready and willing to help our customers build the Litespeed bike of their dreams.
After getting my dropper port added, I opted for Full Speed Ahead’s Flowtron dropper post, engaged with a Wolftooth ReMote Drop Bar Lever. Is all this stuff light? Not really (translated: not at all). Extra grams are the biggest drawback to dropper posts, and race purists will surely bemoan the added weight.
Still, I raced the UNBOUND Gravel 100 this year with my dropper. I definitely didn’t need it. But it definitely didn’t hold me back. I could have taken the time and expense to remove it and install a lightweight carbon post, shaving a solid pound off my bike for the race, but I wasn’t gonna win, though, so ultimately, I didn’t care.
I will say, the dropper was especially handy when dodging the many crashes that occurred during this year’s event. I could easily avoid any pile-ups by jumping off the road into the relative safety of a neighboring ditch or field. I could hop over any grassy moguls, pump through deep potholes, or smash through softball-sized chunder, then pop back out onto the road unscathed. It reminded me of growing up in Arizona, charging through the desert on my BMX bike along bumpy gas lines, down old stagecoach roads, and along dried-out riverbeds. With my dropper-equipped gravel bike, I felt free and ready for anything.
Then, after the race, when I got back home, I was able to hop right back onto the singletrack mountain bike trails I love exploring. When I say quiver-killer, I mean it. These days, I reach for my Litespeed Ultimate G2 more than my road bike and my XC mountain bike. It can literally handle every type of riding I want to do. I’ve grown so confident thanks to my dropper, if and when I decide to race Leadville Trail 100 again (a legendary MTB race), I might just do it on this same Litespeed gravel bike!
