Roval Terra Carbon Post: Getting Rolling

Roval Terra Carbon Post: Getting Rolling – by Guitar Ted

The Roval Terra Carbon Post is another device which has been designed to help with rider comfort. A seat post with some ‘give’, if you will. That is nothing new, of course, but Roval feels that their design does it better, so let’s see what it is that makes this seat post tic.

Detail of the Roval Terra Carbon Post — *The Roval Terra Carbon Post features subtle graphics.*

What It Is: The Terra Carbon Post is made from carbon fiber, obviously, and just as obviously, it is light weight as well. Our sample weighing in at 233 grams. However; there is a bit more to it than that. Here is what Roval has to say about the Terra Carbon Post on their website:

“The Terra seatpost is the best choice for riding mixed terrain, gravel, or rough roads because it smooths the ride by allowing significant vertical compliance. The secret to this ride smoothing post is in the composite layup that we utilized. By utilizing composites with varying elongation characteristics at specific locations in the post, we enabled vertical compliance for comfort while retaining requisite strength for mixed terrain riding, all at a sub-200 gram weight (27.2mm x 330mm x 0mm).“

Detail of the Roval Terra Carbon Post's shaft — *The shaft’s markings for height are almost too subtle.*

Other features and benefits of the Roval Terra Carbon Post are that it has up to 18mm of ‘vertical compliance’ (with a fully extended, 20mm offset model), an easily adjusted, easy to use, non-slip seat rail clamp system, and is offered in a 27.2mm size with the four following variants: 27.2mm x 330mm x 0mm offset, 27.2mm x 380mm x 0mm offset, 27.2mm x 330mm x 20mm offset, and a 27.2mm x 380mm x 20mm offset version.

The Roval Terra Carbon Post also has a Lifetime Warranty for the original purchaser, a 30 Day Satisfaction Guarantee, and No Fault Crash Replacement offers. The Terra Carbon Post has a rider weight limit of 275lbs/125Kg and the price is $250.00 USD.

First Impressions: The Terra Carbon Post is sleek looking out of the box with a very subtle “Roval” graphic on the upper shaft. Hash marks for setting saddle height are also there, but in the same, very subtle graphic which makes it tough when you are needing to use them, but then afterward are not an eyesore when you don’t.

The detail shot of the Terra Carbon Post's seat rail clamp — *The Terra Carbon comes with alloy rail specific and carbon rail specific clamps.*

The clamp mechanism is the ubiquitous enclosed, clam shell type, but this particular iteration of this style is quite easy to use. I had no trouble at all getting a saddle mounted into the clamp and everything was done in short order. This is how clamps like this should work. Well done, Roval!

By the way, you may have noted that our 380mm X 20mm offset test model weighed more (233 grams) than claimed, but keep in mind Roval used the shortest post with zero offset to advertise the sub-200 gram weight. It’s a marketing thing, but we wish companies would just give a range, or advertise the weight of the heaviest example. Finding out your post weighs less than advertised always feels better than the other way round.

The post was installed using carbon specific paste into the Noble GX5 test mule we have here. The post inserted like I would expect with no slop but not providing excessive resistance either. Clamped up and ridden, the post has noticeable ‘give’. We’ve tested other posts with some passive suspension/flex designed for rider comfort here in the past, so we will be giving the Roval Terra Carbon post a bit of a challenge which we will report on in our follow-up posts to this.

The Terra Carbon Post as mounted to the Noble Bikes GX5

So Far… The Roval Terra Carbon Post is another of the types of seat posts designed to have some perceptible amount of ‘give’, ostensibly to provide some comfort and isolation from vibrations to the rider. Does the Roval Terra Carbon Post measure up? I have already felt that it does have a certain amount of compliance, but vibration reduction is another thing altogether. In my next update I will report back if I feel this post is doing what it claims, and if there are any trade-offs to having a post with this feature. Stay tuned……

For more details on this seat post see the webpage here: https://rovalcomponents.com/products/terra-seat-post#

Note: Roval Components sent over the Roval Terra Carbon Post for test and review at no charge to Riding Gravel. We were not bribed,nor paid, to do this review and we always strive to give our honest thoughts and opinions throughout.