Derailers come in two types: nice and crummy. With friction shifting, even the crummiest derailers tend to work just fine. If you upgrade to one or two tiers from the bottom of the product line, you're living large. I use cheap, super-outdated, high end derailers, or failing that, whatever is free - preferably the stock derailer. A truly crummy derailer usually doesn't work well with the also-probably-crummy shifters found on millions of bicycles. The best remedy for this disappointing setup is to switch to friction shifting. Derailers are all capable of moving the chain from side to side. With friction shifting, rider input determines where the derailer moves. You don't want to leave this task to cheap index shifters with squirrely indents moving a cheap dry cable through a maze of dirty cable housing. Cheap derailers will breathe a sigh of relief when you stop trying to put them on a mission of precision.
If you're trying to get better performance from a bicycle, the derailers are not the first thing to throw money at. A Dura Ace derailer will still shift like junk with tired knock-off grip shifters, tired friction-ladden housing or a bent derailer hanger. Put the money (a very small sum) into friction shifters, and learn how to take control of your shifting back. When you do this, you'll find that a twenty-year-old bottom of the line derailer actually works very adequately. If you want to upgrade the derailer, wait for the swap meet when index shifting riders are getting rid of their nice old derailers for $10 each.
When I'm fixing up a bicycle to work great, I use the stock derailers 99% of the time.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment