Mountain Biking - Looking for Cane Creek Thudbuster info

Currently I ride a hard tail (Giant Rainier) with a Marzocchi Bomber suspension. The rest of my family all have full suspension bikes. The thing I love about my bike is the ability to climb much easier than my brother and parents full suspension counterparts. However, I do feel the abuse of a hardtail doing mainly downhill trails.

We are planning a trip to Whistler in a couple weeks where I'll spend most of my time doing downhill trails so was looking into seatpost suspensions. I haven't heard anything good about the telescope type seat suspensions, but I stumbled across this Cane Creek Thudbuster seatpost suspension system and had a few questions for anyone who might have heard about or used it.

1.) Basically, are you happy with it (or have you heard from people who are happy with it) ? :)

2.) The information from the company said that it would provide a softer ride, but won't ruin what's right about hard tails. This true?

3.) When climbing on my family's full suspsensions, I've noticed that the suspension can absorb some of your power, will I notice the same thing with the Thudbuster on my hardtail?

4.) Personally, less than 25% of my riding is strickly downhill. Would something like this be worth the effort of switching out (should the answer to question 3 be 'yes') ?

Any addtional info on this product would be apperciated.

Thanks, Shawn :)

Shawn,

I don't have one, but I ride with a guy that has been through 2 of them and swears by them. They are suppose to give you about 1/2 the suspension as a full does without the added weight. I don't know about the climbing part, but the way this guy climbs I don't think it hurts.

Hope this helps a little. By the way I am probably going to get one and a good place to look is on e-bay. Another place that had them for about $100 is jensonusa.com.

I used a telescoping one for a brief while. it was the Rockshox post and i found it actually quite comfy on my aluminum HT. I haven't tried the cane creek one, but i was pleased w/ the rockshox one. I ended up selling it though cuz i didn't like the weight of those things (i'm a gram counting freak).

Hey bra,
I ride a trek elite 9.8 and i've got the cane creek thudbuster. Dude, if you still havent got that baby then u are laggin big time. I absolutely love the thing. It does exactly what you are looking for. During climbs the shock is rigid enough to not absorb power and yet during downhills/singletrack/XC whatever, it absorbs a great deal of the hits. It feels quite similar to rear suspension but it is so much lighter. I ride on a carbon fiber frame so i am very much into keeping weight off, but the cane creek is very light and will not add a noticeable difference. You will smoke your family on the uphills and be able to take any hit they do and bounce back just as fast.
have fun on that vacation!

-Z