In what turned out to be a bit of a theme for this year’s Sea Otter, there were some new dropper posts floating around. One of the most promising looks to be Bontrager’s Drop Line. If you ask any rider what they want out of their dropper, they’ll likely tell you they want reliability. Bontrager set out to make a post that “just works,” to use their words.
Bontrager went with the common mechanically-activated hydraulic cartridge design for the Drop Line. Travel is infinitely adjustable along the stroke, and the post will be offered in either 100, 125, or 150mm of drop. While I didn’t get the chance to ride the post, it passed the wiggle test, and the under bar remote was well-designed, similar in shape to that of KS’s excellent Southpaw lever.
Should your post shit the bed, servicing it appears to be a simple affair. The entire post can be disassembled with just three Allen keys, a far cry from other droppers on the market. The hydraulic cartridge itself is not user serviceable, you’ll simply swap out the entire unit instead.
The Drop Line will be available June 2016, with a retail price of $300, making it highly competitive in the dropper market. Weights range from 565g for the 100mm travel post to 624g for the 150mm.
In addition to the post, Bontrager also announced a new line of trail-oriented components called–fittingly enough–Line and Line Pro. The new bars and stems use the larger 35mm clamp diameter, but Bontrager was sure to point out that they intentionally didn’t make them any stiffer than 31.8 bars. Many of their testers weren’t fans of competing 35mm bars because they were stiff to the point of being uncomfortable. They new bars are, however, lighter than Bontrager’s previous 31.8 bars.
Another reason for the increase in size was to better match the aesthetic of today’s beefy bikes with their large tubes, wide wheels, and other burly components. The Line Pro ($180) bars are carbon, while the Line ($80) are aluminum. Both with be offered in widths of either 750 or 820mm, with rise options of 15mm and 27.5mm.
Matching stems are also available, although both the Line and Line Pro are aluminum. The Line Pro is marginally lighter, but it does look doper with its polished accents. Lengths range from 40-80mm in 10mm increments. Pricing is $100 for the Line Pro and $40 for the Line, and they will be available later this month.
