Back in the mid-1990s there was an influx of small companies machining their own derailleurs. Not all of them worked well, but they sure looked nice - teenage me drooled over the purple anodized
Precision Billet Proshift derailleur. Nowadays, the drivetrain landscape is dominated by the two big S brands, but that hasn't stopped other manufacturers from trying to get a piece of the pie.
Earlier this year,
Vivo Cycling announced their ultra-customizable (and very expensive) shifter, which allowed buyers to select everything from the paddle shape to the cable tension adjuster's design. They're now working on a derailleur to go along with it, and the initial images certainly are eye-catching.
According to John Calendrille, the company's owner (who has a long history of drivetrain development, dating back to the anodized-everything days I mentioned earlier), the new derailleur is constructed from 7075 aluminum and is devoid of any plastic parts. It's designed to work with 12-speed cassettes with up to a 10 - 52 tooth range.
There are two cartridge bearings at each pivot, for a total of eight, plus a sealed cartridge bearing at the cable pulley. All the hardware is titanium, and the preliminary weight with nylon pulley wheels is claimed to be 315 grams. For reference, Shimano's XTR 12-speed derailleur is 240 grams.
The derailleur is designed to work with Vivo's
own shifter, but it should play nicely with SRAM shifters; compatibility with Shimano shifters hasn't been confirmed yet, due to the slightly different cable pull ratio. The derailleur is designed to be fully rebuildable, including the friction clutch, which is also adjustable.
The final price is expected to be somewhere between $315 - $375 when it officially launches later this summer.
That said, still riding a Shimano Zee mech and shifter combo here .
Grabbing gears after a steep climb is the worst. You can dump 4 gears with XTR by the time the transmission drops a single gear.
time will tell!
Like redbox vs blockbuster, or Amazon vs everything.
Not having limit screws or b-tension adjustment isn't related to the electronic shifter - that's part of the derailleur design. The cable running from the shifter would just be there to move the derailleur up or down the cassette, the same as the current shifter does wirelessly. I'm hoping SRAM releases one eventually - a battery-free version would be great.
www.disraeligears.co.uk/site/paul_powerglide_rasta_derailleur.html
AND
www.paulcomp.com
Whenever I'm back on my real bike I need to dump gears often and transmission just can't do that... Mechanical drivetrain with a Shimano cassette please.
Cannot be bothered with electronic shifting. The mechanical Sram has garbage in place of a clutch and I wouldn't put it anywhere near my bike. Current 12s Shimano shifts amazingly well for about a year, until I bend it enough that I have to run my hanger misaligned to keep it shifting.
The transmission was promising, but seeing it fail on 3/3 of my friends' bikes within a few rides AND still using a garbage clutch that cannot be adjusted(and costs as much as a complete XT RD to replace) is another product I'm not even remotely interested in.
So I actually hope this catches on and we get some competition, or I'll finally get to try an actual transmission near the BB. Because the current mainstram derailleur market is just pathetic.
A whole new redesign makes your shift slower, allowing for a smoother shift (that aligns with the "Shift Mapping". I hope that helps.
The experience has been consistent having ridden HG+ since release. It does get worse after some wear, but I'm talking hundreds of rides. The xt derailleur dies quicker than I'd like. But as long as it's adjusted properly the HG+ shift is brilliant.
In an industry were I can buy about a million different-but-no-so-different 50mm stems, or sub $100 pedals, it would be nice to have a reasonable selection of choices of high-end mechanical groupset (well, not even ‘groupset’ - shifter & mech, since the rest can be the same as it’s electrical counterpart)
Doesn’t sound like an easy task though.
I dig this concept of Dangerholm as an impish nocturnal viking spirit. I'm LOL alone in the lobby of a hotel like a lunatic.
But yes, as someone who remembers well the beautiful failures of the Precision Billet and Paul's CNCed derailleurs, I can only say, can it possibly be as good as something as perfect as XTR?
It doesn't have to be better. If it's as good, the beauty can be the trump card worth the extra hundo.
Also, they were never as smooth shifting as the S&S group.
But like this, they were awwwwful puuuurrrrrdy.
The part of the Industry that got temporarily fat and crazy-eyed serving people buying $1000 gravel bikes in 2020 and 2021 and lying to their financiers that it would keep going forever is a different story
Technically 'aluminum' is correct too, as even the guy that invented/developed it used both terms, but if you choose to use 'alumium', at least be consistent and call titanium 'titanum'.
#smitten
is it only for us Italians the word "ano" sounds really weird in this context? can't we simply use anodized?
But I see zero evidence wireless tech has anything at all to do with speed. Zero.
ingrid.bike/product/rear-derailleur-rd1
Shame it's not compatible with Shimano shifters as the XT, XTR and Saint have "instant release" and dual release.
An analogy: Back when leaded gasoline (petrol) was the norm, it contained ~1.1 grams of lead per gallon of gas (not my choice to mix measurement systems, BTW; that's the figure that keeps coming up when I search it). That comes out to 0.04% lead by mass. So, who here is comfortable referring to leaded fuel as "devoid of any lead"? And would I then be "pedantic" to call it out as a lie? That's how nonsensical I'm seeing these downvotes. I'd really like to just let it go, but it just defies logic and upsets me. Does anybody care to talk me off of this ledge?
Your callous snark having been dispensed with, would you care to provide a real answer now?
Not to mention; how did they make titanium hardware out of aluminium?
These guys really must have found the philosophers’ stone