Most people associate OneUp with mountain biking, but when they added the 27.2mm diameter dropper post to their line up, they opened the door to gravel and road riders that want to add a dropper to their rides. Up until recently, the only lever they had available was a mount for their thumb lever that would mount at the top of the bars near the stem. Their new Drop Bar Paddle Remote integrates into left hand SRAM 11-speed Hydraulic levers, either replacing the stock shift lever or adding one to your 1x lever. There’s something special about this lever though.
OneUp’s Drop Bar Paddle Remote is a lever that you install into the housing of a SRAM 11-speed Hydraulic left lever. It has a similar look and feel to the shift paddle you would find on other SRAM 11-speed levers. By adding it to the lever, it makes it easier to actuate the dropper while on the hoods or drops, instead of having to move your hand in towards the stem for a thumb lever. This helps for those last second drops when things get rowdy.
This isn’t exactly a new hack for those running SRAM’s DoubleTap shifters. I did the hack on a set of levers I have, removing the indexing so that the lever acts as just a lever, and allows you to pull the cable to unlock the dropper and slide it up or down. It works well, but here’s the thing, you either need to get a DoubleTap shifter if you only had a 1x left lever, and it ONLY worked with droppers that clamp the cable at the base of the dropper. For brands like OneUp, this doesn’t work, because their droppers start the cable at the bottom of the dropper and clamp at the lever. The great thing about SRAM’s 1x levers is that they are the same as the DoubleTap, just without the guts for the shifter. The cable port and rod needed to install the guts are still there, so the conversion is actually pretty simple.
OneUp’s Drop Bar Paddle Remote works with 1x and DoubleTap levers, as long as they are SRAM 11-speed hydraulic levers. It is limited to mechanical shifters though, so SRAM Red eTap 11-speed, all SRAM 12-speed, and all Shimano levers will not work. And while 12-speed has been out for a while, many of us are still running 11-speed and will continue to do so for many years still.
To install the lever, it is something that most riders can do at home. Unwind your bar tape, and unscrew the lever from the mount on the bars. From there, peel back the hoods, undo a handful of screws to remove the inside cover, and unscrew the bolt from the back that goes through the body. If you are running DoubleTap, take out the guts, install the new OneUp Drop Bar Paddle Remote, install the cable, and put it all back together. Yes, that’s a simplified version, but OneUp has a great tutorial on their site that I’ll be using to install our demo lever for review.
The other unique part about their lever is that it has a cable tensioner built into the unit. No longer will you need to run an inline tensioner to fine tune the actuation on the dropper, which makes it a great set up for anyone running fully internal cable routing. To adjust, there is a 2mm hex bolt on the inside of the lever that you can adjust. Just fold back the hood cover, and it is there to adjust without having to take anything apart. There’s also a reach adjustment bolt as well that can also be adjusted without having to take anything apart.
The Drop Bar Paddle Remote is available now on their website. We’ll have a sample arriving soon for our gravel build, along with one of their V3 droppers and the Thumb Lever remote as well. The review will come later in the Spring once we have a chance to get out with the V3 dropper and test out both levers.
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