Stupid ? of the Day: Seatposts
 

I have a seatpost now that has 2 screws on the seat post clamp.
This is what allows nose up/down adjustment of my brooks saddle.

Now i'm looking at other seat posts and all the ones in my price range have just one screw on the saddle rail clamp.
So how do you adjust the tilt of the saddle?

There are no stupid questions on BF, but sometimes we see ignorant answers.

You'll see that the bolt connects the lower part of the post to an upper piece that sits in a curved bed. If you loosen it enough, you can shift it forward or back in that bed to adjust tilt.

Sort of like this:

Does your seatpost look like this?

http://www.lhthomson.com/images/sp_elite.jpg

If "Yes.", then go here. (It's a PDF file.)

If "No.", then your seatpost is no good. You need to buy a Thomson.

Ahhh, yes. Now I vaguely remember that from an old road bike I had.
I knew there was a way, i just couldn't remember how it was done. Thanks! :)

Pfft. You're just paying for the name. A seatpost is a seatpost.

Oh, yeah?

What's your seatpost's name? "Buttplug"?

may i ask why?

Guys, please, you'll scare the newbies.

BWAHAHAHA! :D
You almost had tuna coming out my nose. :p

Would that be the old school wind-up vibrating buttplug, or the high tech electronic version?

Simple version: loosen one and tighten the other to tip the saddle in the direction of the one you're tightening. Do in very tiny increments (e.g. 1/2 rotation) because small changes in the bolts translate into large changes in seat angle.

Thanks for the reply but I knew how to do it with my current two-bolt seat clamp.
It was the single bolt design that I couldn't remember how it worked. :)

DOH!

Halloween is a newbie. I must say he has done a fine job demonstrating the "ignorant answer" you mentioned in your original reply.

The one-bolt seatpost is known as a Laprade type and is a very common design among lower priced ones. The top piece and the curved mating lower part have fine grooves across them that mate to hold the adjustment when the bolt is tightened. The adjustment must be made in whatever spacing the grooves allow and isn't infinite the way a two-bolt post provides.

Thompson makes fine seatposts but anyone who insists that only one make of almost anything is the only acceptable one can't be too knowledgable.

Sheesh!


Let me know when you guys finally decide to go out and buy a sense of humor!

I hope you find a brand that you like.


I see incorrect..., even dangerously incorrect technical information in these threads all the time, yet, the only time some of you people wake up and get touchy is when a poster dares to assert a brand preference.


Was joke. (First part)
Was personal recommendation with no sponsorship for providing apparently automatic universal credibility. (Second part)
Mea culpa.


I do not care at all which piece of tubular metal you decide to put between your fundament and your bicycle.

(See above re: "Was joke.")
Yet, the posters on these fora who claim that a piece of rawhide wrapped around wire and stamped 'Brooks' is the bee's knees for your keister and 'nads never seem to meet any naysayers.

Oh, yeah, and I know how to spell 'knowledgeable', too. :p






Disclaimer:

A) I have absolutely no remunerative or financial or corporate affiliation with the company that makes Thomson seatposts.
B) I merely own one.
C) I think it's a very good seatpost.
D) The company has promptly answered every technical question I have emailed them.
E) I do not care at all which piece of tubular metal you decide to put between your fundament and your bicycle.

+1, I like my Thomson seatpost, too. I also used one of their stems for awhile on a mountain bike, good stuff. And a few years ago I was having a hard time finding a certain sized post, although I knew Thomson made the post in the size I was looking for, and I had a question about how to work around the problem. I called Thomson and surprisingly they put me through to one of their engineers, he was very nice to talk to. While I had him on the phone I asked him every seatpost question I could think of (I mean, how often do you get to talk to an actual seatpost engineer?:D ). He took the time to check around and found a Thomson post for me in the size I needed, he referred me to the place to buy it, etc. As for what others use for a seatpost, to each their own. Another favorite of mine is the Laprade on my '83 Schwinn, I like the fluted design-

Well, I don't or, rather, I didn't bother to run the spell check. You sound like my wife! :)

Sorry about misinterpreting the intent of your posts but the forum gets serious blind insistence on one brand loyalty often enough to be touchy about it. I assume you've read the vitriolic C vs S debates here and elsewhere that I don't need further evidence.

The real problem was that the OP was seen as not knowing enough to tell you were being funny. Probably we underestimated him.

And, yes, Thompson does make a fine seatpost and I have one on my "cost was almost no object" bike.

thomson seatposts are pretty damn good. The masterpiece is a bit of a price jump, but the elites are awesome. Best seatpost going IMO. I have two of them (but I also have 2 $15 kalloy ones and really once they're adjusted properly it's really just a weight thing) If you want to fine tune your tilt, the thomson is really nice though.

This is a funny thread.
I have been trying to think of one tech question about a seatpost toask the MFG but cant.
I have never had any issues with seatposts, never even had to replace the seatpost bearings

I guess that's directed at me regarding the conversation with the Thomson engineer. The things I remember asking him about were grease vs. anti-seize, shims, and the variances in diameter between , say, one 27.2mm seatpost and another 27.2mm seatpost from a different manufacturer. It's been seven or eight years ago, but as far as I remember he said very adamantly that the only time you need anti-seize on a bicycle is when ti is involved (he was of the opinion that a good quality bike grease would keep water out better), he didn't like shims because they can cause the seat tube to ovalize with time (although he did say it depends on the shim, but in general he didn't like them), and that there is indeed variance between seatposts of the same listed size. He gave me the actual spec of a certain Thomson seatpost diameter, and I don't remember exactly what it was, but the size he gave me was down to the thousandths of a millimeter, and it was ever so slightly less than the actual listed size. Like I said, I had a seatpost engineer on the phone from one of the leading seatpost mfr's in the world, I couldn't just limit the conversation to, "hey, I need this certain sized seatpost, where can I get one?" :D

And by the way, I'm not interested in arguing about any of the things the guy said, I'm just reporting what he said. :) It was indeed a very interesting conversation, my impression was that he was very nice to answer my questions and that I had probably just talked to the most knowledgeable seatpost person I would ever talk to in my life, for whatever that's worth-:D

.005" or .0002mm is pretty standard machining tolerances for turning. (beyond that and you'd have to get into grinding)

I've got 2 ti bikes, one of them 10 years old, and I've never used anything but grease on them with no issues as of yet.

Wow, This actually really supports the sentiment for choosing a particular Mfg,
A quality mfg will hold much better tolerances and have a consistent product from one to another.
You know what you buy will fit and work reliably.

The way I see it, if it says "Thomson", it has to be good

Signed...Thomson

(kudos to those that leave the P off)

That assumes the frame manufacturer also works to similar tolerances. A perfect seatpost in an imperfect frame is still going to give fit problems.