Warning: this review is not very long. This is a good thing.
- Brand: PNW Components
- Product: Loam Dropper Gen 2 (225mm)
- Price: £225.00
- From: PNW Components UK
- Tested by: Benji for 5 months
Pros
- It just works
- Good value
- Short insertion and stack height for its travel
Cons
- There are lighter and faster extending posts out there (if you care about such things)
- Er. PNW didn’t send the silver or ‘brass monkey’ colourway version for review ;-(
Warning: this review is not very long. This is a good thing. If a dropper post just works and is decent value, there’s not a whole heap to say. Apart from well done PNW Components.
The Loam post continues to go and down smoothly after a UK autumn and winter. Not too fast, not too slow. It just… works.
Why should you get this post instead of another? That’s hard to say. The market is not exactly starved of decent droppers. Compared to the arguable benchmark dropper – the OneUp Components V3 – it’s a very close call. I’ve grown to appreciate the PNW Loam more but mainly for a couple of reasons that simply won’t apply to every rider out there.
Firstly, I much prefer the travel adjust mechanism of the PNW Loam. Unscrew the collar (easy to do by hand), lift and rotate the plastic stepped shim thing, re-insert shim thing, screw collar back down. A heck of a lot easier to do than fiddling with brass pins on a OneUp post.
Secondly, I just really like the 225mm drop option. I often find 200mm not enough, and 240mm too much (both in a doesn’t fit into the bike frame sense and in a saddle-actually-too-low sense).
Neither of these options may apply to you, so feel free to ignore. One thing that is of interest to everyone is the price of things. And at £225.00 the PNW Loam is a fair bit cheaper than its rivals.
What else is good about the PNW Loam? It does a good job of cramming of lot into a relatively compact space. Both above the seat tube and within it. This 225mm fits in frames that often max out with other brand’s 200/210mm posts. And the collar-to-saddle-rail distance is as short as it can feasibly be.
Anything else? Well, if you’re feeling fancy you can pair it with a matchy-matchy PNW remote lever (which are really nice, to be fair) and even a different colour rubber collar band.
Overall
Much like this review, the PNW Loam dropper is not very long and it is a good thing. It does everything I want a dropper post to do and I really get along with the relatively unique 225mm travel version.