{"id":585349,"date":"2026-05-15T11:12:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:12:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585349\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T11:12:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T11:12:14","slug":"why-dont-pro-road-cyclists-use-dropper-posts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/585349\/","title":{"rendered":"Why don\u2019t pro road cyclists use dropper posts?"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our Tech Q&A series, we tackle your cycling questions \u2013 big or small \u2013 with help from the BikeRadar team and trusted industry experts. In this instalment, a reader wants to know why dropper posts aren’t popular in road riding despite at least one high-profile win using them.<\/p>\n

If dropper posts are so effective off-road, and Matej Mohori\u010d famously used one to win Milan-San Remo, why don\u2019t more professional road cyclists use them?<\/p>\n

Anonymous via email<\/p>\n

Dropper seatposts<\/a> are a must-have accessory for mountain bikers, because they enable riders to get their saddle lower and out of the way, which can help with tackling steep or technical descents.<\/p>\n

Outside of a few high-profile instances (such as Matej Mohori\u010d\u2019s high-speed descent of the Poggio on his way to victory in the 2022 Milan-San Remo), though, dropper posts have seen little use in professional road cycling.<\/p>\n

Although the UCI has a penchant for banning technical innovations it doesn\u2019t like, cycling\u2019s international governing body has confirmed dropper posts can be used in mass-start road races.<\/p>\n

\"UAEShimano neutral service bikes are equipped with dropper posts. Etienne GARNIER \/ POOL \/ AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Indeed, we often see them used on neutral service bikes \u2013 like the one Tadej Poga\u010dar hopped onto during this year\u2019s Paris-Roubaix<\/a> \u2013 as a means of adjusting the saddle height of a bike on the fly.<\/p>\n

Adoption beyond these rare instances has been more muted, though, because \u2013 first and foremost \u2013 most modern road bikes<\/a> now feature proprietary D- or aerofoil-shaped seatposts, meaning road frames typically aren\u2019t compatible with round droppers.<\/p>\n

\"canyonThe vast majority of modern road bikes use D-shaped or aero seatposts. Canyon<\/p>\n

That road bike brands generally don\u2019t consider dropper compatibility also reflects the fact that technical descents typically aren\u2019t decisive in road races (Milan-San Remo being an obvious exception), and that pro road racers remain a generally conservative, weight-focused bunch.<\/p>\n

Anything that adds extra weight to a pro bike had better make it tangibly faster, or else riders will be questioning its existence.<\/p>\n

Given their legality has been confirmed, it\u2019s possible we\u2019ll see a dropper-post revival on the road at some point \u2013 if, for example, we start seeing more technical descents added close to race finish lines \u2013 but the dominance of aero-optimised frames and components remains an obvious limiting factor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In our Tech Q&A series, we tackle your cycling questions \u2013 big or small \u2013 with help from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":585350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[4985,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-585349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cycling","tag-cycling","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585349","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=585349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/585349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/585350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=585349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=585349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=585349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}