Drop bar dropper seat post remote lever

This is a work in progress, but other iterations may show up as new projects. This project will probably only see minor changes, so I'm not checking the "Work-In-Progress" checkbox.

As the title says, this is a remote cable pull lever for a dropper seatpost. It fits in the drops of a typical road bike handlebar. It is usable from both the brake hoods and in the drops, depending on your thumb strength.

Instead of using a hose clamp like my previous dropper lever mount, this time I have cannibalized the bar clamp from a pair of road bike brake levers. Find similar parts by searching for "STI shifter band clamp" or similar items: Apex/Rival/STI/Ultegra shifter band clamp, or variations like that.

This design also uses a 608 cartridge bearing. It's probably overkill for only ten or fifteen degrees of motion, but the bar clamp nut fits the inside diameter of the bearing without the need for any spacers, so it's very convenient and easy, even though it is a bit bulky. The bearing is only pressed into the remote lever so may slip out. Fortunately, my 3D printer prints holes just undersized enough to fit the bearing tightly.

My dropper post has the cable head at the post with a cylindrical cable clamp that fits into the lever. Spare cable can be routed through the hole in the lever. A regular shifter cable end should also fit either in the cable clamp hole or in the extra cable slot.

Routing of the housing and wrapping the bars may be a bit of a pain, and you will probably want some sort of inline cable adjuster to adjust the tension since I haven't figured a good way to put a barrel adjuster in the remote.

This has only been tested on the stand. Real world testing to come. As mentioned, this is a work in progress, but I have aspirations to make a shock remote too, so this may be abandoned.

I have printed this with PLA, but it probably does not have the durability for extended use. Please consider using ABS if your printer is capable.

Print at high infill since there are compressive loads on the body of the part.

The body is probably best printed with supports, oriented with the curved bar side up. The lever with the intuitively flat side down, bearing opening up.

The nut/bolt hole is a bit small, but if you run through the hole with a 7/32" drill bit (correction: 5/16"), the nut will fit in nicely. Version 2 has a slightly bigger hole in the body, there are no changes to the lever.

This is designed in Autodesk Fusion 360. The messy design file is at: https://a360.co/2HSirn8