• Race Face Deus seat post
• £64.95
• www.silverfish-uk.com

Along with bottom brackets, seat posts are one of those often forgotten about components. You fit them and then basically ignore them until they stop working for some reason. With that in mind, you wouldn’t think that there’d be world of difference in seat post designs, but Race Face’s new Deus post is proof there’s still room for innovation.

The big difference with the new design is that you can adjust the fore/aft saddle position and the tilt independently, rather than tending to disturb one while changing the other. Other posts have this feature too, but Race Face has a unique way of doing it. It makes posts with the same clamp design in Next SL, Evolve XC and Deus flavours – the two can now be adjusted independently. We’ve tested the Deus as it’s the closest to an all-mountainy post in the range.

Starting with the important bit, the head is made from 6061 aluminium which is forged then CNC machined. The cradle is then attached by two short struts to the lower clamp – undo the bolts on the clamp and slide it up or down to adjust the angle. Engraved lines make fine-tuning easy. To move the saddle forward or backwards, simply undo the cradle bolts, and adjust safe in the knowledge you’re not accidently going to lose your angle setting. It’s very smooth to operate and makes saddle setup a simple and pain free process.

The shaft is of 7075 aluminium, triple butted on the inside, anodised and shot peened on the outside. We’ve been sliding ours up and down plenty and it’s still in good condition, and the engraved height markings are still clearly visible – which also double as weight indications if you want to chop the length.

It’s 400mm long, weighs around 240g (depending on diameter), is available in 26.8, 27.2, 28.6, 30.0, 30.9 or 31.6mm sizes and in a Hobson’s choice of colours.

Positives: Independent up/down/forwards/back setup, engraved markings, strong

Negatives: Occasional creaks on heavy landings

Verdict: The unique head design is one of few that offer separate fore/aft and tilt adjustment, and it all works very easily and smoothly. Throw in the engraved markings and saddle setup and adjustment has never been this easy.

Performance: 5/5
Value: 4/5
Overall: 4/5