uppy downy stuff

Just me and Si out on tuesday and I had borrowed junkyards old gravity dropper to give it a go. Easy enough to fit, cable routing might be a pain it's a bit in the way at the moment. Rode up to meet Si and I noticed some play straight away, bit of rotational sideways waggle but some fore/aft too. The key and guide can be replaced on GDs so rotational should be fixable dunno about fore/aft. Up barrow bridge and winter hill and on to 2 lads, dropper is only a 3" version so for proper downhills I need to lower seatpost anyway, down 2 lads we went, not bad, drier than I expected, good run and down the top half of wildeswood too. Back up old rake and hole in the wall. San marino was faaaaaast, along belmont rd up scout rd and down through the quarries, Si had a bit of trouble but not too much. Up horrocks fold to scout rd car park and drop into smithills, up smithills dean rd back to scout rd again! Round to walker fold and we dropped down into barrow bridge ending with the 63 steps, well sketchy, varying length steep steps, guard rail on both sides so pretty narrow and tricky to get into a rythmn. I got down slowly but not exactly comfortable. Si went down a few steps then suffered a bit of a refusal so I pushed back up and we went looking at an alternate route...which turned out to be a completely unrideable staircase. Back to 63steps then, I started even slower this time but the front wheel would flip flop left and right alternatly as you corrected, over corrected, corrected again until I got 3/4s of the way and let go of the brakes. Easiest way might be to let go the brakes at the top and rip all the way down but lots of bottle and/or a DH bike needed.
Then we split and I headed home fast, which is where I started to appreciate the GD. Pedal pedal pedal, seat down bunny hop big kerb, seat up, pedal pedal, down, flick bike left/right round tight chicane, up, pedal, down, steep roll in, up pedal. I normally do my route home without messing with the seat, no problem but I could get round/over/down the obstacles quicker without having the seat in the way, no slow down at all to nail the bunnyhops, hardly any braking needed for the corners or roll in, just hammer it all the way. Would be great for the 1 or 2 races events I do each year and for fast solo rides. I knew a compulsive saddle dropper like me would want one as soon as I tried it. I still think they are heavy, expensive and (possibly) shonky but...maybe I'll get one, we'll see.