Ritchey Classic 2 Bolt Seatpost

The Ritchey Classic 2 Bolt seatpost is exactly that, a simple, well-made design that with its polished silver finish looks excellent on metal frames, especially if you're refurbishing a retro race frame from a bygone era.

• Pros: Beautiful polished finish, easy to use clamp design
• Cons: Not as light as carbon if that bothers you

Ritchey really fills a gap with the Classic. A few years ago I bought myself a steel Italian frame with lovely slender tubes and a narrow 1in steerer. With a set of handbuilt, silver wheels and hubs, all it needed was some corresponding finishing kit but choices were very limited.

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To get everything to match – stem, handlebar and seatpost – the Classic range was pretty much the only option. Thankfully, while it was pretty much the only choice, it was a very good one.

This seatpost is forged from 2014 series aluminium alloy which gives a strong component without too much weight: 260g for this 27.2 x 350mm option on the road.cc Scales of Truth, against the claimed 245g on Ritchey's website.

The outside is beautifully smooth thanks to the polished finish, and has been kept to a tight tolerance to fit in the seat tube without slippage. Internally, the walls of the tube are oval, being thicker front and rear to cope with the loads applied from your pedalling and hitting bumps in the road.

It's made more noticeable by the chamfered bottom edge of the post. Structurally the chamfer doesn't mean much, but it's an extra process that doesn't necessarily need to be done; it removes any burrs from the edge and shows a high attention to detail.

The Classic comes in three diameters, 27.2, 30.9 and 31.6mm, all in a single length of 350mm. Like most, Ritchey allows a minimum installation of 100mm of post into the frame so you get 250mm of usable height from seatclamp to the middle of the saddle rails: plenty on all but the most compact of frames.

The clamp, as the name suggests, uses a two-bolt setup, one either side of the neck of the post to clamp each rail.

You get an upper and lower plate which clamps the rails evenly as you adjust things. For angle tweaking, you get an arched head mated to serrated curved washers for each of the bolts, and when tightened to the recommended 12Nm torque I got no slippage at all.

Price-wise, you can pick up a cheap alloy post from around 15 quid so why spend nearly 60 on one?

Well, first up, you can save a few grams. I've got a £20 Cinelli seatpost here and it weighs 301g for the same size post with a similar clamping system.

The main difference though is the quality of the finish. The Ritchey's main post is forged in one piece as opposed to cheaper options which will have the head bonded into the aluminium tube. A one-piece structure adds strength without increasing weight.

At €63.95 (currently £55.88), the Classic isn't even that expensive really. Thomson's Elite (we tested the top flight Masterpiece option here) is £77.95, currently discounted to £58.46 on its website. It's a little lighter at a claimed 241g.

Fizik's Cyrano R3 seatpost is one that I've previously owned and it was a beauty, just as easy to set up as the Ritchey and of similar quality with a claimed weight of 240g, but its rrp is a cool £92.99.

Overall, the Classic seatpost is simply that: smooth lines with an excellent finish backed up with a quality construction which will suit many bikes old and new.

Verdict

A beautifully finished seatpost with classic looks whose beauty isn't only skin deep