OneUp Dropper Post V3 First Look

OneUp captured mountain biker’s hearts with their budget friendly and high-performance products, and dropper posts have been their bread and butter for the last 5 years. The OneUp Dropper Post V2 changed the game in the “budget” dropper post world, and made every other company step up their game. Now, OneUp has also stepped up their own game and squeezed a little more juice out of the lemon with their Dropper Post V3. It’s lighter, smaller, more reliable, and easier to service, making our shop's favorite dropper post even better. Instead of completely reinventing the dropper post, the V3 is really just a detailed refinement in just about every way over the V2, and there have been a lot of changes which have added up to create a much more premium package that a lot of riders are going to love.

OneUp’s new year resolution was losing weight, and they’ve slimmed down the V3 by 60 to 70 grams compared to the V2 depending on the size, and is now the lightest dropper for its amount of drop on the market! That’s about 15% lighter than the V2 which is a substantial weight savings off of a dropper post. Plus, if you’re really watching those grams, OneUp also offers a ti bolt kit to take another 10 grams off! Not only that, but it’s also a bit shorter than the V2, with an overall 10 mil shorter length and 3 mil shorter stack to squeeze as much drop as possible out of your bike. They’re also reclaiming the title of shortest dropper stack height after the Wolftooth Resolve post launched with 1 millimeter shorter stack than the V2. All of this means that the OneUp V3 dropper can give you the absolute maximum amount of seatpost travel, as long as you have internal dropper routing!

Also brand new for the V3 is the recyclable sealed aluminum cartridge that's filled with nitrogen. Because it's fully sealed, you won’t ever have to top off with air, saving you some time in the workshop. This new cartridge is rated to last at least 350 hours, up from about 250 hours for the V2 cartridge. OneUp also heard the call for a smoother and easier to use dropper post, and with its redesigned actuator takes 75% less thumb force to actuate the post with your weight on the saddle, so you can finally stop doing thumb curls at the gym. They’ve also doubled up the anti-rotation pins to reduce the rotational play in the post. Personally, we’ve never really cared about little bits of play in droppers, but lots of other riders do, so it’s cool to see that OneUp listened to what riders were requesting.

The actuation while seated is definitely the most noticeable difference on trail between the V2 and the V3, and the seat really disappears out from under you without any hesitation. On every dropper post I've used, they're always happiest to go down when you hit the lever while off the post, and then bring your weight down on the nose of the saddle and in the direction of your seat tube angle. That's to fight the binding going on between the stanchion and the chassis of the seat post, but with the new IGUS bushings running the show, the V3 has far less binding when compressing the seatpost. It could just be because our V3 is still brand new, but so far the action is smoother than the V2, and has noticeably less rotation play both when the seatpost is up and down.

With all that drop, you'll have extra confidence coming into steep sections of trail.

So if you're the proud owner of the OneUp Dropper Post V2, should you toss it in the dumpster and rush out to buy the V3? Well hold your horses! The V3 is definitely an improvement over the V2, and does all of the same things as the V2 a little bit better, but that certainly isn't a knock on the V2. While it isn't the latest and greatest anymore, we've long praised the V2 for its value and performance, and nothing about that post has changed! In fact, it's even better now that you can get the V2.1 seal head to bring its performance a little closer to the V3.

But, for those of you deciding which dropper post to buy for your next bike or upgrade to on your current bike, it's almost impossible for me to recommend anything but the OneUp Dropper Post V3 when compared to other high end dropper posts. It's lighter, shorter, easer to service, and cheaper than all other premium dropper posts on the market, so OneUp continues to make our favorite dropper post! We also highly recommend pairing the post with OneUp's Dropper Remote V3 for an affordable and high quality dropper lever that's designed to work perfectly with their V3 Dropper.

Got questions? Feel free to shoot us an email or give us a call!

(360) 306-8827

sales@thelostco.com