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NitroPro Suspension Seatpost
By James Sharp
Imagine what a hard tail anonymous meeting would be like:
The door closes and the meeting starts. After a brief announcement that next weeks meeting will be postponed due to a race, new visitors are asked to introduce themselves. The first one stands, "Hi, my name is James Sharp, and I...(sigh)... am a hard tail rider." "Hi James", the crowd responds.
No, there isn’t an AA-type meeting for those who continue to eschew full squish bikes for the lively feel of a fine hard tail, but sometimes it seems that there should be. It seems that the only bikes getting press are full suspension bikes, but the fact is, there are many situations where a hard tail makes more sense. But what do you do if you have a hard tail and are a little tired of taking a beating on long rides? Sometimes even the most die-hard hard tailers want to sit down. We’ve reviewed a couple of suspension seat posts in the past (see Linkage Seatposts) and were less than impressed with their performance. This time we thought that we’d take a look at the NitroPro post. This one differs from those reviewed previously in two areas: First, the NitroPro is a telescoping design, so it doesn’t change the saddle-to-bar distance. Second it uses a nitrogen charged cylinder as the spring medium. Does this mean that it eliminates all the problems we encountered before? Sort of.
One of the major grips we have had with suspension seat posts was undamped travel. The damping mechanism built into the gas spring of the NitroPro is about perfect. I never felt that the post was trying to eject me from the saddle. It always returned to the top of its stroke smoothly in a controlled manner. The NitroPro has 2.3 inches of travel. It is adjustable for preload, and there are different gas springs available for different weight riders.
The bane of many telescoping seat post designs is rotational movement of the saddle. It’s like pedaling a swivel chair. Fortunately, NitroPro addresses this issue with an expanding key. Should the post develop any side to side slop, a mere twist of a knob is all that is needed to remedy the situation. I found that the adjustment takes care of most, not all, rotational play. What is left isn’t noticeable while riding.
So far, so good. The NitroPro seat post has about a smooth an action as I have ever felt in a seat post, and the expanding key keeps the post moving up and down, not rotating side to side. So what’s not to like? First and foremost is the weight. One reason that people stay away from full suspension bikes is weight. Adding a 575gram (that’s 1.26 pounds, folks) post would be almost sacrilege to some. For comparison, the popular Thompson seat post (410mm) is 290 grams, almost half the weight. The second gripe that I have with the post doesn’t affect all users. That is, that in order to eliminate stiction, it is necessary to have the saddle centered, or even slightly forward, on the rails. Fine if that is where you normally have your saddle, not so good if you tend to run your saddle farther back. In our experience, the performance of the post varies considerably with saddle position; with the saddle too far back and the post will tend to rock for and aft, binding on its bearing, instead of sliding smoothly up and down.
Summary: At $179, the NitroPro isn’t cheap, but it’s not that much more expensive than a comparable high-end suspension seat post, and to put it plainly, it works well. It still has some quirks that take some getting used to, it still changes the distance from saddle to pedals like all suspension seat posts and it does take a good 100 miles to break in, but with some patience the rider is rewarded with a noticeably smoother ride. I heartily recommend it to anyone still riding a hard tail mountain bike.
James Sharp is a contributing editor for GearReview.com specializing in mountain biking.
For more information, contact:
Alumaline Inc.
930 Puerto Vallarta Ste.B
Santa Barbara, CA 93103
Phone: 1-800-966-1675
E-mail: mark@nitropro.com
www.nitropro.com
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