A flawed design?

My blip is the source of much frustration and the reason I didn't get out to look for a Wide Wednesday subject today. 

I decided to put a suspension (sprung) seat post* on my e-Bike as riding on less than smooth tarmac can be quite jarring on my lower back after a short while.  Swapping the seat post was not too bad but the binder set-up on the bike is more complex than it really needs to be.  See the extra for where it fits on the bike.

The bolt you can see pulls the two halves together and so squeezes the centre part outwards, clamping the seat post into the tube. To hold it in place while adjustments are made you can see the centre section is held in place with an O-ring.  Unfortunately,  if the O-ring is displaced or broken, when the seat post is pulled all the way out - the bits of the binder fall into the seat tube.  Darth Vado being an e-Bike, the motor unit is at the bottom of the seat tube and the bits of the binder, having collected some of the grease from inside the seat tube, come to rest in among the wiring for the motor.  I did eventually manage to get them out by taking the bottom cover off the motor mounting and with the bike upside down, poking about with a small screwdriver.

No idea where the original O-ring went,  but Gill had a box of various sizes,  one of which was a perfect replacement.  I have no idea why she has o_rings - but I'm glad she did!

Gill's bike - almost the same model - has the conventional and simpler - clamp ring around the top of the seat tube.  Too big to fall into the tube.

C'est la Vie!   

* the Redshift Shockstop version - and very nicely engineered it is too.