Rear derailleur configuration

[Mfezela]

This is just for thought. Please don't respond with vitriol. We all have personal preferences, no one school of thought is correct.

The very first derailleurs manufactured in the 1940s and 1950s had a spring pulling the slider towards the largest sprocket (just like today in low-normal / rapid-rise derailleurs). After the invention of the pantograph in 1964 by Suntour, the direction was reversed and from then on in the vast majority of rear derailleurs, the spring pulled the slider towards the smallest sprocket.

IMO High-Normal suits competitive road racers for whom quick, efficient changes to a faster gearing ratio (for sprints) is important.

IMO Low-Normal aka Rapid Rise suits X-Country and Enduro mountain bikers for whom quick, efficient changes to a lower gear ratio (for climbs) are more important.

IMO Downhill guys? Probably High-Normal since increasing speed is the aim.

 

[Sharky]

Rode with benulux which was spring loaded to the big sprocket. It was fiddly getting tension right. Migrated to simplex which was much better.

 

[Dogtrousers]

My first ever derailleur was a Suntour Skitter which was low normal. This meant both gear levers worked the same way. That was when I was learning to use derailleur. Push forward for a lower gear, pull back for higher. There was a nice symmetry about it. And when I moved on to other mechs the loss of that symmetry irked me a bit.

Apart from that, I don't really think I've given it much thought.

 

[winjim]

This is just for thought. Please don't respond with vitriol. We all have personal preferences, no one school of thought is correct.

Oh come on, I would love for this thread to become vitriolic. You'd have to admire the passion of somebody who could get that worked up over derailleur configurations.

The only time I've ridden a bike with a rapid rise mech was on holiday in France, so I had to simultaneously get used to having the brakes and the gears both backwards, while also having a small child on the back of the bike for the first time ever. That was a laugh.

 

[Mfezela]

Oh come on, I would love for this thread to become vitriolic. You'd have to admire the passion of somebody who could get that worked up over derailleur configurations.

Sadly that happens a lot. Passion often descends into insult. Just look at the helmet / clipless pedals / Brooks / lube type, etc. threads.

 

[raleighnut]

I had a bike with 'low normal', it's f*$£"&% awful, the mech is still hung up in my shed (the jockey wheels may come in useful one day)

 

[Drago]

I had a late 90s Giant XtC with XT rapid rise and didn't really feel any benefit or any great disadvantage either. I think the theory was great, but in practice brought little benefit. An answer to a question the buying public hadn't really been asking.

Commercially it was doomed to failure. High normal was so entrenched on the market, and rapid rise mechs being largely incompatible with standard, freely available shifters etc meant it it was overlooked at best, viewed with suspicion at worst.

 

[Dave Davenport]

The opening post is so obviously a thinly disguised advocacy for a fascist/communist (take your pick) totalitarian state that the poster should be banned from the forum forthwith!!!!!!