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Wolf Tooth Components’ Valais drops in to marry saddlebags & dropper posts

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We spotted the Wolf Tooth Components’ Valais at Interbike along with an array of other goodies from the Minnesota brand and regular design contributor Lindarets. The Valais is basically a clamp for your dropper post that brings a variety of benefits. Use it to strap a seat bag on, or to limit travel, or to lock the post in the upright position should things go catastrophically wrong.

The primary function is as a seat bag mount. It’s cupped at the bottom to avoid hitting the seal, so your dropper is protected since it rests on the outer portion of the post’s lower segment. Yes, it will reduce total travel by about 25mm, but it’ll also keep that bag from rubbing your rear tire under deep compression.

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As a travel limiter, installation is the same, except you slide it to wherever you want on the stanchion and tighten the bolt. To get it on the post, you just clean the slider, then snap it over the slider and reinsert the bolt and tighten it.

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The Valais retails for $25 and works with most current dropper posts. It’s made of injection molded Delrin in New Mexico and assembled in Minnesota. Available now.

WolfToothComponents.com

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Ck
Ck
7 years ago

Or you could run a Backcountry Research strap and not lose any amount of your dropper travel due to a saddle bag.

Marc
Marc
7 years ago
Reply to  Ck

True, but with much more than a tube there’s still a good chance of seatpost or seal collar contact -the photos on the BR site show the tube resting on the post. For another $10 it’s cheap/light insurance.

bob myaing (@corkgrips)
Reply to  Marc

..or perhaps Ck here is actually talking about using BR’s frame strap and not saddle rail strap!

Mike Williams
Mike Williams
7 years ago

Or if you own a Topeak bag you can just reverse the “clip” on the bag (its attached by a single bolt) and insert it onto the bike mount backwards. It creates enough room for the bag to clear the frame clamp…and in my case even the KS Lev’s cable junction box when it is facing rearward (which this product won’t).

Shreddie
Shreddie
7 years ago

Or you could use the Rockshox Enduro collar that’s been out for 5 years, is a known quantity, and is cheaper, too. I’m constantly flummoxed that Wolf Tooth is still in business. This isn’t news, it’s another “solution” to a problem that Wolf Tooth simply made up.

Dockboy
Dockboy
7 years ago
Reply to  Shreddie

Their derailleur links help me a lot. They let me go to 11 speed 11-42 for only a bit over the new cassette and chain, which I needed anyhow. Maybe it’s not important to you to be able to mod derailleurs, but I love it.

i
i
7 years ago
Reply to  Shreddie

I have to agree; I wasn’t sure if it was just bikerumor that has such a hardon for wolftooth. They just fawn over every stupid, ‘me too’ product they roll out.

$25 for a $0.0001 piece of plastic that makes your dropper not work, because you’re too stuck in the 80s to put your pack somewhere else. But hey, it’s “made in america”

Marc L
7 years ago
Reply to  i

i,

I’m not sure what about the Valais is “me too,” nor are our other Interbike launches: the ReMote, which solves as many rider/mechanic remote complaints as we could find, or the patent-pending WolfCage, which enables wide-range gearing without tearing the derailleur apart. You’re entitled to your opinion, sure, but we spend a lot of time looking at ways to provide solutions that are different than or improvements on what is on the market- we buy and ride them all. And of course our Drop Stop tooth profiles are unique and easily among the top tier of narrow/wide chainrings.

As far as the cost of making things, the stainless hardware and threaded brass inserts used here cost several orders of magnitude more than your rough estimate. While Delrin isn’t an inexpensive material -it’s tough, flexible, and non-marring- it’s molds that are the bigger cost drivers. We worked hard with our manufacturing partner to make the two sizes possible with one main cavity, but no matter what having a high-quality mold made and parts shot to tight tolerances is going to cost real money.

While some don’t consider country of origin when making their purchases, others certainly do. We have all benefited from first-world educations, labor laws, working conditions, environmental protections, and more. When starting Wolf Tooth, the company’s founders made a conscious decision to pay those benefits forward, supporting domestic manufacturing wherever it made sense. It often mean less profit for the company, but we usually come within spitting distance of third world products. We know that it doesn’t matter if things don’t work well, but all else being equal we hope that others will recognize the value in making things in the US. And if nothing else, it helps us sleep at night.

Barry
Barry
7 years ago

Can you strap a bag to the enduro collar, or is it just a travel stop?

This isn’t for me, but the Wolf Tooth stuff (chainrings, mostly) has been good to me, and their pricing is good, especially when all of their competition is made in China.

the biz
the biz
7 years ago

no i way i’d give up 25mm for a bag.

D-CON
D-CON
7 years ago

If I cold find a waterproof bag that holds my phone, I’d do this instead of my hip pack in a minute. That thing is just getting annoying.

OtherAaron
OtherAaron
7 years ago
Reply to  D-CON

have you tried a ziplock?

D-CON
D-CON
7 years ago
Reply to  OtherAaron

I’m thinking that a ziploc big enough for a tube, co2, tool, phone and ID would be less stable than the hip pack.

If you mean inside the seat pack the problem isn’t waterproofing, it’s the shape of the bag. They’re just not phone shaped.

bailey
bailey
7 years ago

Cut the small Velcro trap off my seat bag, attached bag back on rails about 10mm. Hasn’t touched my dropper in years. Zero loss of 25mm.

Juan Sevo
Juan Sevo
7 years ago

Back in the day we didn’t even have dropper posts and we liked it cause that’s the way it was. Rocks for bearings in our hubs. No suspension. No carbon or ti or tires bigger than 1.95. But guess what? We still road Slickrock and tech trails.

And guess what? We still had fun.

D-Con
D-Con
7 years ago
Reply to  Juan Sevo

^isn’t that like posting on The Verge or Macrumors about how great rotary phones and typewriters were?

Now if only there was a forum about retro bikes…

Marc L
7 years ago

All,

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback. We knew going in that the Valais 25 wouldn’t be embraced by the enthusiast end of the market. And it’s certainly not aimed at those on the bleeding edge for who a 150mm saddle drop means cleaning a section while a 130mm drop means sudden death.

That said, it is a response to a need that we and the shops that we work with did observe: people strapping saddle bags to dropper posts. I’m sure that the mechanics in the audience have seen it- and know from experience what even a tight post strap can do to a fixed post over time.

We also saw World Cup XC racers disassembling their droppers to putting clamps or spacers above the seal to limit travel- and knew that there was a better way.

And when developing the idea, we came to like it the more we used it. Being able to head out for an hour or two this summer with just a saddle bag and water bottle, nothing on our backs or in our pockets, felt really good. It was like having Specialized’s SWAT hole without a dedicated frame. And having a bag kept our tubes and tools clean, kept quick links from getting lost, and made tossing in a wallet or snack that much easier. Finally, on big days it meant freeing up a bit more space in the hydration pack and (like the Enduro collar) having a way out when our droppers died.

So no, the Valais 25 isn’t for everyone. But I’d be willing to bet that those of us who work in shops or ride with big groups can think of an example of the rider who would be able to benefit.

Marc

Mike in Cave Creek
7 years ago

I get the delrin collar providing a non-marring material to clamp a bag to. I personally run a Awesome Strap from BR so I don’t use a bag. What I don’t get is limiting travel on a dropper. Why bother having a dropper post at all then?

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