The first Alien seatposts were light, very light, and in comparison to many of their European and American equivalents good value.
But the one sticking point was the clamp - once you got it right it never slipped, but getting to that point was a huge chore. I also couldn't quite trust the tiny 2mm Allen head bolts to last long.
The good news is that USE seem to have taken in the customers' concerns on board and have come up with the new Cyclops head. As you can probably guess from the name, it now has one bolt, enlarged to 3mm and located centrally. This has improved fitting and adjustment no end and it shows the clever aspects of the design to the full, plus the reduction of hardware has reduced the overall weight by 5g.
It's also good to see that Use have made an upgrade kit available (£14.99) so existing users can keep the post and swap to the new head. Aside from its 100% improvement in fitting, the Alien is as good as it ever was - super-light, more than tough enough (although for ultimate strength go for the SUMO head version) and with quality carbon tubing that takes the sting out of rough road surfaces extremely well. In all the Alien comes highly recommended and shows that there are still some British brands pushing cycle design.
