Hi everyone!
Just by looking at this race bike in 2019,
what would you change on it to make it faster?
Some of you might think about carbon wheels right away and,
I wouldn't argue with that, actually
I have a set of rims, ready to go but what else would you change?
And no, it won't be the SRAM AXS drivetrain,
even though that might be in our future at some point,
but something that we saw last year more and more in the UCI races,
was definitely dropper posts.
But since we're talking race bikes, I had to pick one of the lightest,
if not THE lightest dropper post available to us today,
and that is the Fall Line R by 9point8.
Manufacturers usually provide all the information about their droppers,
usually online, 9point8 is no different,
but when deciding what dropper would fit my frame,
what I did, I went here under droppers, fitment calculator.
This is where they summarized it quite nicely.
All you need to measure on your bike
to decide on a dropper post is two dimensions, X and Y.
X is the distance between
the saddle rails all the way down to the seat tube collar.
That is with the saddle at the climbing height.
In my case that X dimension is 160mm.
The Y dimension here
is how far down the frame you can push your dropper.
For me it is 200 millimeters,
and with that information 9point8 provided a couple of suggestions,
as a good starting point.
I ended up with this Fall Line R, 30.9mm,
315 mm overall length, 100 mm stroke dropper post.
This is an Inline head, as specified here.
As for the remote that I got,
they are the Trigger, this is the ThumB,
and the Digit, the one I got, the latest one.
ThumB is the one that all weight measurements are made with.
This is a Canadian company, droppers are made in Canada,
and I actually had this original Fall Line dropper,
not too long ago, and I have a full review online
if you want to check that out.
Their zero waste packaging looks like a prism,
and inside, here are the goods.
First of all I ordered the Digit remote with my dropper,
with a Matchmaker adapter.
Here's is the TorqueKey that they ship with every dropper.
You have the lightweight cable and housing that comes with the Fall Line R.
And a few more leaflets here,
first one is - oh this is talking about those saddle rail clamps,
how to get service,
how to install the Digit.
Fall Line R is built using the same DropLoc technology
that they use for Fall Line.
You can see the new logo over here, 9point8,
and under their tagline "Engineering is lighter than carbon"
they actually redesigned this dropper to shave way to pretty much everywhere:
the lower tube, the upper tube, they redesigned this collar,
the head, you see the inline here, it's slimmer now,
even though they kept the fore aft and tilt adjustments as independent.
They test this dropper to the same 100 thousand cycles,
fatigue resistance is the same as the good old Fall Line,
And if you look here on the back
you're going to see that they went away from the cuttable droppers,
only because I think they're happy enough with the weights that they've achieved.
What kind of weights are we talking about?
Looking at this 315 millimeter dropper.
It is is 343 grams.
In comparison, here's a carbon seatpost, 250grams,
so that's not bad at all.
The standard cable and housing that comes Fall Line is 70 grams for 1.6 meters,
however Fall Line R comes with this lightweight cable that's only 45 grams.
If I add the dropper and the Quick Connect, the nut and the seal nut,
that's 396 g, and the remote makes it up to 435 grams.
I don't know what you guys think, but this is an amazing wage for an installed dropper.
And talking about installation,
in the box you have instructions on how to install your remote.
You have a couple of stickers, look at those,
and installation instructions,
However, if you prefer to follow a video,
I have a comprehensive video on how to install the Fall Line on my YouTube channel,
and Fall Line R is no different.
But in a nutshell, first thing is installing the remote,
and if you had any doubts,
here is the Digit remote next to the Wolf Tooth ReMote,
it's pretty much the same,
with the exception of the lever.
Run your housing through the frame.
By the way, this is the light housing - Jagwire XEX-SL,
And if you want some suggestions
on how to run that for an internally routed cable,
I just put up on YouTube a video for it.
Install the Quick Connect, and the T-nut,
but not before removing the two set screws from the Quick Connect,
they are not needed for the Digit remote.
Cut your housing to the proper length,
and finish it with the provided ferrule cap,
and finally, run your inner cable, and connect it to the Digit remote.
If you already have the remote, the Quick Connect allows you
to use cables either terminated here,
or terminated at the remote.
Race Face and Easton OEM their technology, the DropLoc technology,
and over the years I've installed and used them both,
so here's a few more things that are worth mentioning.
By adjusting the pressure between 20 and 40 psi,
you can adjust how fast the seat is gonna raise.
However, this little air chamber is susceptible to grease contamination
from your shock pump.
So make sure you have an absolutely clean shock pump before
using it on these droppers, or use a floor pump
since you only need 20 to 40 psi in here.
And one last thing about installation,
the head uses titanium coated hardware,
and they don't recommend using grease or Loctite anywhere,
including the saddle rails.
However, you should torque all these bolts to the recommended spec
and 9point8 include the little TorqueKey for that.
Functionality - just like any dropper,
fully depress the lever to extend the dropper at the fastest speed.
Or throttle the lever to adjust the speed of raise,
or to stop the seat anywhere in between.
The top collar is hand tight now, that should make for a lot faster servicing.
Remember to use this P10L grease, it's a lot better than Slick Honey.
The newest version of this seal is blue, hope you like that color.
Side to side saddle movement is kept to a minimum,
that's because of the keys they use,
they are three piece that adjust for wear as well.
We've only been riding the bike for about a week now,
and not even on real trails,
but the dropper definitely performs very well,
Also I can adjust the stroke if I want to,
I can limit that with spacers inside the dropper.
Still one of my preferred features is the fact that
you can lift the bike by the saddle without worrying about damaging the dropper in any way.
If you lose the air in the air chamber,
you can just position the dropper wherever you want
and it's gonna stay there.
For me, local service, Canadian citizenship,
a lot of good reasons why I considered the 9point8 Fall Line R,
not to mention the weight, which in my case was paramount, for this young racer.
What about you guys?
Hardtail with a dropper post?
Race bike with a dropper post?
What are you running in 2019?
Are you interested in one of these superlight droppers
that we have on the marketplace today?
Replacing the fixed seat post with the dropper
cost me 170 grams in this case .
Would that be too much for you guys?
Is that gonna make this bike safer, more comfortable, or just faster overall?
Let me know what you think in the comments below.
If you found this useful
don't forget to like the video, subscribe to my channel,
follow me online,
and until next time,
I will see you folks on the trails.
Cheers guys,
Cheers!