If you're going to make a wireless 12-speed drivetrain, you might as well throw some of that technology at your dropper post, right? That's exactly what RockShox have done with the new Reverb AXS that uses an encrypted wireless network in place of the normal Reverb's hydraulic hose. The post's travel is still non-indexed, and it's controlled by a funky, button-style remote, with 100mm, 125mm, 150mm, and 170mm travel options.
If this is what the future looks like, the future ain't gonna be cheap; the Reverb AXS will sell for $800 USD when it hits the shelves this coming April. SRAM hasn't released a weight yet, but they say that it's within a few grams of the normal Reverb, so expect it to come in around 650-grams with its remote.
Reverb AXS Details• Travel: 100, 125, 150, 170mm
• Electronic, wireless design
• Re-designed head, clamp
• Faster, fixed return speed
• SRAM battery, CR2032 in remote
• Lengths: 340, 390, 440, 480mm
• Sizes: 30.9, 31.6, 34.9mm
• Weight: TBA
• MSRP: $800 USD
• More info:
www.sram.com/rockshox
Inside the Reverb AXSSo, what exactly is happening when you push the remote's button? And why isn't this thing called the E-verb? I only know the answer to the first question, with the gist being that RockShox has combined existing wireless tech with tiny electric motors and batteries.
Let's start up top with the remote, pictured to the right.
Without the need to pull any cable or, in the hosed Reverb's case, push some oil, they were free to come up with an entirely new remote. The new AXS ''controller'' (their words, not mine) sees a wide, easy to hit thumb paddle that's tucked up close to the underside of the handlebar so you don't have to unwrap your thumb to hit it. You're also probably a lot less likely to smack it with your knee for the same reason, and because it's now a literal button (under the paddle) rather than a lever, it only needs to travel a few millimeters before activating the post.
The remote is larger than I expected - after all, it still needs to house some electronics and a CR2032 battery - and it's on the same AXS program as the drivetrain, so you can customize the "controller touch points" to your liking.
Another tidbit worth noting is that there seems to be plenty of room on the remote for SRAM to add in another button, say if one wanted to be able to control their suspension lockout, maybe? Further integration down the road is very likely, even if SRAM wouldn't comment on their long-term plans.
You need to press that small button on the back of the remote to pair your Reverb AXS, something that also keeps ''friends'' from messing with your bike. The AXS app lets you choose which button controls what, from the shifter to the Reverb remote.
Want the Reverb remote to act as a shifter and one of the "touch points" on the right-hand remote to operate your seatpost? That takes all of about thirty seconds using the free AXS app that's available for iOS and Android devices. My boss wants to yell at me daily for not understanding or using Google Docs (ugh, they're my personal TPS Reports), but even I figured out how the AXS app works pretty quickly.
Now to the seatpost itself. Think of it this way: with the notable exception of the Vent Valve (more on that later), the Reverb AXS remains largely the same as its forebearer from the stanchion down. That means it's still a twin-tube layout, and there's still an internal floating piston (IFP) that separates the air and oil, albeit an updated one to go along with improved oil and grease. But from the top of the stanchion up, things are drastically different.
The SRAM battery that clips onto the back of the Reverb AXS is the same as what's used to power the wireless Eagle AXS drivetrain. On the Reverb, SRAM says you'll get around 40-hours of battery life.
The original Reverb actually uses two separate hydraulic systems: the post's internals, and the remote and hose. Put simply, the only thing the traditional Reverb's hydraulic remote does is open and close an oil port on the seatpost. All other hydraulic posts need the same job done, of course, but they do it with cable-operated remotes instead.
A few years ago RockShox decided they wanted to do the same job but without any hoses or cables.
From left: the battery mount and cover, the post's head with the plunger still inside (the small red part), the circuit board, and the motor with the gearbox attached.
To do that, a small electric motor needed to be squeezed into the post's head, which was no small feat. First, the right motor needed to go in there, and it had to be powerful enough to open and close the oil port, but it also couldn't require too much juice. The answer is the same tiny motor that's found in the Eagle AXS derailleur that spins up to something like 80,000 RPM. Just like the derailleur, the Reverb AXS has its own RC car-sized gearbox to handle all the RPMs and torque required to open and close the oil port.
Wireless and electronic or not, the Reverb AXS still needs that oil port to open and close for it to be able to go up and down through its travel. This is also what gives the Reverb the infinite range feature that allows you to move it a few millimeters at a time or make your seat disappear under you.
The motor sits inverted on the head, with the gearbox activating the plunger.
The motor sits inverted behind the re-designed clamp, with the tiny gearbox at the bottom that aligns perpendicularly with a plunger. When you hit the remote with your thumb, a signal is sent through an encrypted wireless network to a receiver hidden inside the post's head. Technology does technology things at this point via the circuit board, and the little motor goes from zero to full torque instantly. That's put through the gearbox that then depresses the plunger and opens the oil port, and then the post is free to go up or down.
I think that it's important to point out that none of the above is a feat of engineering or pushing the limits of technology. Sure, the packaging is impressive, but as long as it's been executed correctly, the technology itself isn't something that we should be shunning, especially when it comes to dropper seatposts and drivetrains.
There are a couple of other things to mention beyond the whole 'no wires' angle, the first being something called Vent Valve. I don't think it's out of line to say that RockShox invented the squishy dropper post when they invented the original Reverb - it worked well when it worked, but it could also be the world's most annoying suspension post. That's caused by air and oil mixing inside of it and, well, air being squishy and all...
The fix is to bleed the post's hydraulic system, a daunting job for the average rider that's far beyond doing the same to the remote. Vent Valve is the answer, RockShox says, and it's essentially a built-in way to push the air out of the system without having to bleed the thing. All you have to do is flip the post upside down, depress the stiff Vent Valve button (that is also the top of the air valve) with your thumb, and then compress the post while a friend activates the remote. It's a two-man job [edit: only if you use the remote. It's a one-man job if you use the button on the Reverb].
If that sounds similar to what BikeYoke has going on inside their Revive post, that's because it is, only RockShox uses an IFP to keep the air and oil separated, and BikeYoke does not.
You might have to do it a couple of times, but it takes all of a minute or two and the Reverb goes back to being rock solid under your ass. Not gonna lie, I bet a lot of people would have liked this feature on their older Reverbs, too. Sadly, it isn't retro-fittable.
No, that's not a seat bag. The Reverb AXS' electronics required a complete re-design of the head to fit everything inside. Along with that came a new way to make seat angle adjustments.
All of that computer stuff, along with the electric motor and gearbox, required RockShox to ditch the proven twin-opposing bolt head design for something that looks like a single-bolt setup at first glance. Thank God it isn't, though, because those terrible things are just terrible. Instead of depending on just the single bolt that clamps the seat's rails to also hold the angle, there's a second, locking bolt that's used to adjust tilt. You still need to back off the clamp bolt, but once that's done you turn the second bolt to make angle adjustments before locking everything back down.
The electronic internals necessitated the head's re-design, but this new setup is also far easier to deal with than the common opposing-bolt layout.
Enough about what's inside of it; let's get onto how it performed.
No Hose, No Worries?The usual press camp disclaimers apply here and to any so-called "first ride reviews'' that you may read elsewhere - we all got two or three rides in on the Reverb AXS dropper while in Tucson, Arizona, which isn't enough time for a proper review. That said, the early impressions were quite positive all around.
My Reverb AXS and Eagle AXS wireless drivetrain were installed on a Yeti SB130. It turned out to be a great bike for the rocky, pointy terrain that surrounds Tucson.
Yes, it goes up and down as it should, and the non-adjustable return speed is faster than the previous models. It also makes cool '
vvvvt' sounds when it does its thing. Most importantly, there's no delay between you pushing the button and the motor opening the port - it is much, much faster than Magura's Vyron dropper. It also feels damn near instantaneous next to a normal Reverb.
Part of that is down to not having to push a lever (or plunger on older Reverbs) through its stroke, however short, to activate the thing... Because it's literally a button that you push, the activation speed seems to be about on par with flipping a light switch and having the room brighten up.
The Reverb AXS' action is faster, especially because there's no lever or plunger to depress; think lightswitch kinda speed.
The new button-style (sorry, it's a ''touch point'') remote also lets you easily make those smaller micro-adjustments in seat height that you might do if you like steep, technical climbs, or if you like to tinker to match whatever kind of terrain you're on. All you do is push on the button using the edge of your thumb so that it merely grazes it, which is enough to lower the seat by maybe 5mm or so. That sounds useless when I describe it now, but it's certainly not on the rolling, rocky trails around Tucson that dart up countless rises and through even more dry washes. Amazing trails, but they're a lot of hard work for someone in the middle of a Candian winter.
The Reverb AXS was almost trouble-free. Mine refused to raise back up on one occasion after being lowered for a tricky righthand corner that I probably deserved to crash on, although it was sorted out within a few seconds after we removed the battery and re-installed it. No word on the cause, either, and I asked around but no one else had a similar issue. Technology, amirite?
There are a few other things to note as well, especially the fact that no one is going to be able to "hack" into your Reverb and take control of it. Just like the Eagle AXS drivetrain, the post runs on an encrypted wireless network that's paired to the contro... er, remote, and you need physical access to the component in order to pair it because you have to depress the pairing button. You have to know the component's serial number, too. Russia probably doesn't care about your E-verb, either, so no worries there.
As for battery life, the little CR2032 that's up in the remote should last for a couple of years, and there's a button on the side of the Reverb to activate it if you manage to run the remote dry or break it in a crash. And speaking of that, RockShox does plan to sell replacement paddles, and maybe even offer a few different versions to boot. I expect some aftermarket options to pop up as well. As for the important SRAM battery on the post itself, it's the same as you'll find on the back of the Eagle AXS derailleur, meaning that you can swap them around if need be. I was told to expect around forty-hours of life from it (double the drivetrain battery's life), which should be thousands of up and downs, and a warning light will tell give you its status. It only weighs 25-grams, too, so you could easily carry a spare with you.
This isn't a review, but I was pretty impressed with the performance of the Reverb AXS, aside from that unexplained stuck-down moment. After just two days on it, I know that I'm going to prefer the wireless AXS model over the traditional design. Funny thing, though, is that I don't say that because there's no hose, but rather because the wireless design necessitated some much-needed improvements to the Reverb as a whole. Yes, even over the last update.
There was plenty of fun to be had on Tucson's trails, especially when you can make your seat disappear at the blink of an eye.
Not only is the Reverb AXS much, much quicker than its predecessor, it is also far easier to modulate the travel due to how the remote is designed and because the action is instantaneous. Vent Valve is obviously a godsend, too, and the whole thing does away with that silly hose as a bonus. Well, maybe it was the other way around, but the bottom line is that the Reverb AXS shows a lot of potential. The only thing left to do is to spend a good chunk of time using one and find out if it's reliable.
If everything checks out, do you think you'd be willing to part with $800 USD for the wireless Reverb AXS?
Other than the one ride reliability, it is a bit of clunky looking beast. 650 grams would make it the class leader: meaning the heaviest by a fair bit! Keep adding weight to our bikes! Good job!
However, I am not even sure, if we could possibly even afford fighthing such a big company even if there was patent infrigement. They´ll always have the longer leverage.
Wait, maybe we could do a croud funding lawsuit. LOL...
I never understood the hydraulic actuation in the first-place more shit to go wrong, but now this...natural evolution of the electronic craze i guess. I can see it now some kid mid race run cant get his dropper down cuz the battery died haha. OneUp and Wolftooth never look back!
is there a coil conversion?
PEBSAH Compliant
Problem Exists Between Saddle And Handlebar
Maybe alongside a pneumatically actuated drivetrain made by Crankbrothers.
Do you worry about your phone Bluetooth being hacked. Hint: it is not an issue.
This is just marketing mambo jambo to create an illusion of added value. Boohoo. Low power Bluetooth or whatever they use is encrypted. Stop the presses.
If you don't know that Bluetooth is encrypted as standard then it would be reasonable to worry about someone f*cking with your dropper post or gears without your permission. Making it clear that this is not possible is both reasonable and prudent.
My Eagle X01 shifter and derailleur have been fantastic, so not here just to slam SRAM in general>
I just bought a Trans X with 110mm for 119 euros.
It's the JD-YSP36 version.
Works just fine.
www.bike-discount.de/de/kaufen/tranzx-jd-ysp36-remote-sattelstuetze-395x27%2C2mm-760697
Trans-X, X-Fusion, Brand X,etc.
I don't really know man.
That post has a nice lever for that price and it's fast. The speed ist controllable.
Tha feeling of the post is not that smooth, but hey, at least it's not the shitty creaky e13 dropper that can crush my ballz off.
I have the external routing, 80mm version on my Cove Hummer for 2 years now. Never skips a beat.
$800 is way too much for this tho and I’ll be waiting (perhaps another 3 years of non-servicing!) for the price to drop.
Bikeyoke is a better post and 1/2 the cost.
SRAM is blowing it with the wireless electronic BS.
Flawless since day 1. Absolutely one of the most reliable dropper I've had and will be on all my bikes from here out.
R&D Engineer - "We know how to make the Reverb more reliable"
R&D Director - "Can you make it cheaper?"
Marketing - "We need a differentiation, the competition is killing us"
R&D Director - "We can give you wireless"
Marketing - "What an awesome idea, that will give us what we want to make a difference in our sales figures"
R&D Director - "Lads, we have a new project, you will love it, we are going wireless"
R&D Engineer - "But we know how to make the current post more reliable, move the actuator to the bottom, make it cheaper and lighter"
R&D Director - "Great idea guys but please stick to the business plan that we have global alignment on, we are going wireless, if you are not working on this key project then I need to know why"
R&D Engineer - "But we have working samples which show how reliable this new design is!!!!"
R&D Director - "Why have you worked on that, its not part of the business goals, we need wireless and we need it now, lets stay focused on the company goals".
6 months later.....
R&D Director - "I will now push this as my idea and take all the credit, we have wireless"
Marketing - "Thanks R&D Director, this is exactly what we need to make a difference in the market, nobody will care about the price as we have removed a cable and this looks amazing as a market differentiator"
Pinkbike - "Thanks for the seatpost, we will review it"
Customer..........
flag adrennan (18 hours ago)
Why not try and make normal reverbs work first?
R&D Engineer - Sits and watches all smug that he was right all along but is still miffed as that R&D director is on the big money and the marketing guy has his new product launch bonus.
Being the R&D engineer, this is pretty much how it goes.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKorP55Aqvg
1) As its mechanically all proven old-hat tech (wireless encryption notwithstanding), why the hell has this taken so long to come to market, from SRAM or anyone else?
More importantly, 2) Will Rockshox be putting the Vent-Valve on a new revision of the hyrdo-handraulic basic Reverb? I'm sick of cases of reverbitis, the extra 10mm of suspension that precedes the moment the dropper drops for the terminal time and dances the seat-post gallows fandango.
As SRAM/Shox build specs are so common for pre-built bikes, a trickled down reverb that has some longevity would be fantastic without adding an extra $/£/€ 500-600 for the wireless tech.
What's up with the Creeper Tash Levy?
$800 for a fricking seat post. A SEAT POST!? What the actual F?!
That'll equate to about £600 which is utterly mental for another thing you've got to remember to charge and at the end of the day it's A POST. WHICH SUPPORTS YOUR WEIGHT. Is a cable really that much hassle???
Oh and it's Bluetooth so 90% of the time it simply won't work. Then randomly after turning it on and off again for the hundredth time it will start working for an indeterminate period before shitting itself again.
But hey lets not let the facts get in the way of a good rant
Have we really hit the point in human existence wherby the only way to make things better is by adding hideous amounts of complexity for imperceptible benefit? Like the other commenters have said, RS should really sort the Reverb out before electrifying it.
I must admit I've got a pretty good technical understanding of the AXS stuff and a bit of ride time on the product also, I was fairly sceptical at first as to what perceptible difference the products could really make to the quality of ride / performance but ill just say that i don't want to go back to cables!
Looking just at the Reverb for sure there is some added complexity but also some simplification. The installation / pairing / go ride time is genuinely seconds rather than minutes and that includes fitting the seat.
Internally the new IFP / sealing and lubes used help with return speeds especially in the cold (This i can confirm - its colder here than Arizona!) and they must have some confidence in it as they've increase the service interval from 200 - 600 hours. The vent valve purge for air in the oil side on the IFP is a huge step forwards. The article is incorrect and the procedure can easily be done single-handedly and you don't need to use the controller either. Hopefully this will be rolled out across the rest of the reverb range.
In use the activation of the Reverb for me is a bigger step forward than the drivetrain (and the drivetrain is bloody good!) - there is just so little movement and effort required over either of the 2 prior remote systems and the control over micro adjustments to seat height is much improved.
So yes while its undoubtedly more complicated on the inside from an end user perspective in IMO a much simpler product.
Im sold anyway!
Lets not forget steep seat angles will be the saviour of dropper post reliability too!
Anyway, in the cold light of day I can obviously see the benefits and if you were to ignore the price then fine. But as a collective the bike industry seems hell bent on innovation no matter the cost, almost the costlier the better. Looking at the prices for some of the other AXS stuff, £500 for a set of cranks etc etc etc and quickly you'll end up at £2000 and well beyond for a complete groupset before you've even bought the post. Unless you work in the trade and get massive discount, are given this stuff or literally have money to burn this sort of thing can be a real barrier to new people coming into the sport. People at work go goggle eyed when I tell them how much my Patrol build was and that's only using alu rims and XT grouppo which I can get for less than £500.
I'm more convinced of the wireless dropper than a wireless shifter at this stage, the stealth cable can be a faff, especially the Reverb hydraulic hose but cable droppers really aren't that bad and after a couple of goes can be done in moments and unhooking the cable noddle and lifting the post can be done in seconds. But internal routing hides the cable away. I'd rather replace a £5 cable and wire to get it working again than need a howmuch£?! battery to get it moving.
The whole 'time to fit and ride' thing is hollow justification. Sure I've been up later the night before a ride than I had planned but again hollow justification for the sheer cost.
They've obviously done their homework on the protocol, no doubt some enterprising so and so will breach it but the consequences are far less serious than other wireless connectivity applications.
So the vent air feature is an improvement but is an improvement for a problem which should never have been there in the first place and has plagued legions of Reverb owners who swear NEVER AGAIN. 3 Reverbs, 2nd went back on warranty for the squishiness after 6 rides, replacement was fine for 2 years and only 1 re-grease. Would I touch another one? Hell no, and definitely not at that price. It would need at least 2/3 generations of maturity and price drops to make it other than on a wish list.
Sure Shimano Di2 still had the wires and they may have messed up recently with the XTR 12 speed release, but they won’t be down for ever and here’s hoping a more reasonably priced alternative comes out in the reasonable future.
I’d rather phase replacement of a £4-5k bike every 2-3 years than a £10k bike which is where all these bits are heading to, which as I said earlier is MENTAL. But if those infinitesimal gains are what you’re after then go for it.
Yes the component / phone protocol is BLE - ive only been using it in anger for a couple of days but it seems pretty stable.
I get the whole cost thing too but what i don't quite get (and this isn't a personal dig its rife through this comments section and MTB in general) is people being offended by the price of top end stuff coming to market. Nobody is being forced to buy this stuff - standard Reverbs and GX/NX Groupsets aren't going anywhere and if that (or something from any other brand) works for a particular rider and budget then that's just great. I just don't get the anger at all. This stuff trickles down to mass market because of the successes of the top tier aspirational product (look how relatively quickly NX Eagle appeared after XX1/X01)
Understand your position on the Reverbs too but at least through revisions in the post its clear attempts are being made to improve things. The IFP is better so your less likely to get "squish" and if your unfortunate enough to do so 30 seconds later and its gone. For sure for some people 'Reverb' is tarnished and that does stick and takes some shaking Avid Elixirs are 11 years old (and were dogshite) but yet some people still refuse to consider SRAM brakes today because of this.
For every 10 people in your position who want a £4-5k bike every 2-3 years (which you can still get and will get better every 2-3 years because of trickle down) there will be 1 who will want to drop £10k every 12months and fair play to all of them.
There will also be 100 people happy to get a £1000k bike every 5 years and think those spending £4-5k are mental... and then there will be 1000 people ..........
I'm all for just cracking on - enjoying riding my bike and not judging people for what they choose to spend there hard earned on. More choice is good for the industry and the technology drive to make better stuff benefits everyone at every price point along the way. Its just senseless to me why so much of the market cant see and embrace that.
Maybe I'm a minority!
I'm done with reverbs even though I was lucky the price of this thing is a final nail. I rode an 18 demo bike a few weeks back with SRAM Guides on and they were just as shit as the Codes I had on a DH bike 4 years ago, and back in the day I loved my Avid Juicy Carbons, multiple sets. I agree to an extent that more choice is good but for some components (stems, bars wheels) there is a dizzyingly pointless array of samey products indeterminable from one another.
Digressing slightly there, sure the trickle down would be good but it's going to be a while before this hits a wide spread affordability. The idea is nice but yeah way out my price range for more. Feel free to crack on and post up how good this stuff is in a little while.
Magura wireless dropper: $350USD/$470CAD
Well then.
It to have the same internals as a fox transfer.
It to be the same weight as a fox transfer
It to have gps and remember where I put the post up and down so I don’t even have to press the button.
Wireless technology is not something new and spending that kind of money on a dropper post is ridiculous.
I will consider buying when it reaches the 350$ level (in about 4-5 years)
Maybe in a few years, sitting on a bike will require as many set-up "touch points" as the leather seat on a dentist's luxury car.
but aside from the easy install w/o hose or cable, why do I want this? And for how much?
We've past the complexity threshold, with a wireless operation.
If I can surf the internet and navigate with staelites from my phone, I would think moving an seat up and down a shaft isn't too tough a problem to solve.
Make the battery and sensor more close or parallel to the bar so that it wont hit everything and break when you crash.
The lever looks like an afterthought sadly.
One of those presenters has a trek road bike with no external cables or hoses. On the bar there are the two brake/gear lever units... And that's it. You cannot see a single cable or hose externally.
That would be cool on an MTB.
They need to sell a ton of them. They will be $112 as part of an OEM parts package if you buy a complete groupset, forks and shock.
The price is a red herring.
SRAM should have developed a bulletproof IFP first, then looked into wireless actuation.
And one final gripe-that battery pack looks like no tool roll under the seat...BOO
@mikelevy
And I mean that in a good way...
Insert UK comments here...
that is the only reason i would consider an electric dropper.
simplicity is beauty, and so this thing is butt ugly.
i had a fleet of di2 bikes at a rental shop i wrenched at. the batteries went out at times, that never happens to cables or hydraulic oil
Having used di12, let’s say I’m not that impressed. Call me a Luddite, but putting sensitive electronics on a mountain bike that I routinely throw into the dirt at high speeds, that just seems dumb.
I broke my dropper lever off my bars during a spill last summer, the lever was shattered, cost to repair $50. Replacing a $200 lever would really piss me off.
every early adopter/kid with parents cc: "Bro I can't get one?? wtf dude, Mom, get the meatloaf!"
Damn it!
Love my Magura Vyron
Does this explanation make sense?
Two bolt systems, one fore, and one aft completely solved this problem, but it appears the location of the actuator on this would make it hard to use the two bolt system.
My question: Does this post use a single bolt clamp similar to the first gen Giant dropper post, and is there ANY possibility of the saddle tilt angle changing after an impact?
I’ll wait on no name brand one that cost half the price.
Trials in the laundromat? Downhill cafeteria sessions?
Exactly Zero is the number of times I've been on a trail and had either within 100m of me.
much
mo*