Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Busted

Anyone out there ever use a Thudbuster seatpost? Gimmic product or as good as claimed? There's loads of reviews on MTBR, but ones like the guy who claims he trashed his knees using this concern me. Didn't have my finger on the order button or anything, but looks intriguing enough to collect info.

6 comments:

solobreak said...

That is sort of correct. I have a Thudbuster ST (short travel). If you have issues with your low back, you might want to try one. It is very good on lumpy pasture courses like Wrentham, especially when they're frozen. The place I train is like this, and always frozen in the morning, which is why I tried this in the first place. Off road it is great. On road you will get used to it, but there is some play in the pivots which causes an annoying rattle. I am using the hardest bumper that was supplied with it right now. You can order an even higher durometer one, but probably won't want that. I used the medium one for a while before switching to the hardest for D2R2, and since I've been too lazy to change it back. It is a little heavy but no big deal to me. My Yo Eddy is so stiff that I consider it unrideable without this thing. But I never ride it anyway...

The regular long travel Thudbuster feels too weird for me.

solobreak said...

Oh yeah, it might occasionally prevent a pinch flat too.

trackrich said...

My thinking on this was to use it on my hardtail mountain bike as some sort of substitute for buying a full-suspension bike. A tiny bit of the back story is that I have a number of future MTB events planned where I have been told you'd really want to be on a full suspension bike. 99.9% of the time I enjoy riding my hardtail so it would be nice if this dodad could get me through those days where I'm better off with the FS. A large part of me is from the camp where nobody NEEDS a full suspension bike, but I've heard too many stories of how awesome they are in certain situations to completely ignore their usefulness. I'd be getting the LT version if anything.

solobreak said...

I don't think it's a substitute for a modern dual suspension bike. Of course you don't NEED one of those, unless you're racing and you want to be competitive. Thudbuster does nothing when you're off the saddle.

trackrich said...

Of course you don't NEED one of those, unless you're racing and you want to be competitive.

Oh you mean like all those guys winning world cup races on hardtails...

solobreak said...

Are you racing World Cups? Frishneckt won worlds with a rigid fork several years after suspension forks were de riguer too, but those races are long and have tons of climbing.

I'm the last person you should ask, as I don't even remember the last time I did an MTB race. But I've been riding in the woods around here for 25 years and what I can tell you is that it's totally different now than it used to be. Trails used to be narrow and twisty and go around all the trees and rocks. A Wicked or other nimble bike was the way to go. Now the trails are all pushed out to ATV width and the "line" just goes straight over everything.