Quality-conscious bike fans wanted nothing to do with heavy wobbly bikes. The result: more and more manufacturers dispensed with the popular comfort accessories and supplied their bikes with lightweight rigid supports. Increasingly wider tyres had to provide more comfort.
However, a clear renaissance can be felt in the 2014 model year. New manufacturers and systems are even entering the market. In addition to telescopic and parallelogram supports, there is now a leaf spring support that swings out to the rear in a similar way to the parallelogram.
All three systems have their advantages. The leaf spring is super light. Telescopic stabilisers are mechanically simpler and tend to be lighter, while parallelogram stabilisers absorb shocks from the direction they come from, namely the rear wheel. As a result, their breakaway torque is lower - they usually spring better than telescopic stabilisers. Due to their complex design, parallelogram supports are generally more expensive and not as visually discreet.
The choice of suspension material is also crucial. The Ergon leaf spring seat post goes its own way here. It does without separate spring elements, its carbon fibre body is self-springing. Of the other twelve supports, four use steel springs, four elastomers, three a steel spring/elastomer combination and one has air suspension. Steel springs are temperature-independent and have a linear characteristic curve. This means that they also spring more strongly under heavy loads, i.e. they react linearly. Steel springs are heavier than elastomers and must be protected against rust.
Elastomers are solid, elastically mouldable plastics. They are light, corrosion-resistant and low-maintenance. However, they become hard in cold weather and have a progressive characteristic curve. This means that they deform relatively strongly under normal load, but less so under heavy load; the support hardens. Air suspension, such as the Airwings Air 360, can be precisely adjusted to the rider's weight with the aid of a shock pump. It is also an advantage with the other supports if several steel springs or elastomers in different hardnesses are available.
All telescopic stabilisers use friction-reducing designs or materials at the top of the shaft, where the dip tube enters the stanchion tube. Fortunately, only one model (SP 7.0) has a simple guide with two grooves, all others use more complex solutions. The new parallelogram seatposts from Contec and Mighty use slim hinges with countersunk bolts. Although this looks elegant, it is not designed to be as durable in the long term as the wider designs with large contact surfaces from By.Schulz, Cane Creek and Suntour. Overall, however, there were no problems in the test field.
