KS is focusing on all categories for dropper posts, not just mountain bikes, which helps explain the new Zeta model for road bikes. They’re also working on all manner of buttons, levers and methods for making those posts drop, like this prototype wireless dropper.
Shown above, the electronic dropper doesn’t have a formal name yet, but it’s in development. It functions the same as the others, but with an electronic valve rather than a mechanical valve and a NFC wireless remote control.
Right now, it’s a proof of concept to gauge interest and see what sort of battery interfaces make sense. It could integrate with Di2 or e-bike batteries so there’s not a separate battery pack required. The one above had a rather big, ugly battery pack attached to the seat tube just out of the pic’s lower edge.
It works by simply holding the button down and compressing the post, so it’s not a motorized system. The real advantage is that you get rid of the cable.
No particular timeline for launch, it’s in a holding pattern until they figure out the battery issue. But they’d like to see it go to market next year.
The new KS Zeta road dropper post is going to production, though, and it sits flush inside the frame so it looks like a regular seatpost at first, until you use its 25mm of drop.
Instead of the sliding the seatpost of most droppers, this one has a carbon shaft with seatmast topper. Once you’re fit to the bike, you trim the carbon piece to length and attach the mast topper. The topper maintains 5-8mm of adjustment, too, so after-the-fact adjustments are still available should you change saddles in the future.
The active parts are all hidden inside the frame for a very clean, smooth appearance befitting a road bike. Or cyclocross. Or gravel.
The remotes shown are two options here looking at, but with some bikes going to 1x drivetrains for cross and gravel, they (or you) could even figure out how to integrate the action into a left side shifter lever.
They’re also looking at their own mechanical lever that fits somewhere closer to the bend in the bar that would let you reach it from both the tops and the drops.
Here’s something we don’t see much in the U.S. KS has made suspension forks for Cannondale, Argon 18 and Kuota, among others, for years, mainly for road and city bikes.
