As I mentioned last week, I’m putting a gravel bike together, and here’s an update on what I shall heretofore refer to as Project Gravel (or PRJCT GRVL):
Ready for the update? Here goes:
I haven’t done anything yet.
Well, okay, I did look at the manual for the shifter pictured above, and I couldn’t make heads nor tails of it:
Or should I say I couldn’t make proboscises or labial palps of it?
All drivetrain components are sort of insect-like these days, but these seem even more so:
If you told me that was a magnified image of a dust mite I’d have no trouble believing you.
Speaking of being behind on stuff, back in July I wrote about Rivendell’s new low-rise rapid-normal derailleur:
Well, the first batch has arrived and was available as of Friday!
But I guess I’m letting you know too late, because it seems they’re already gone:
Sorry.
Fortunately, more are coming in December.
So why would you want a low-normal derailleur? (Besides the fact that it doesn’t look like an insect.) Well, here’s what Rivendell say in their newsletter:
Friction shifting is where OM really starts to shine. With a ratcheting friction shifter like ours, the ratchet helps counter balance the spring and push the derailer into the higher gears, and when you want to ease up the spring shoots the derailer back up the cassette, getting you into an lower gear more easily. It’s a satisfying ratcheting push (or pull, if you’re using bar end shifters) shifting high, and a light-touch pull shifting low. Shifting into easier gears on hills feels smoother, too, which must be because of the spring. The Silver OM-1 feels to me exactly like my Shimano RR derailers, and that’s high praise: those ones are perfect.
This has been my experience, and downshifting in particular with a low-normal derailleur and a fiction shifter (specifically Rivendell’s, which are the only ones I’ve tried with a low-normal derailleur) is indeed exceptionally smooth. The other benefit–maybe even the biggest one–is that if you’re using bar-end shifters your lever will be pointing straight down when you’re in your lowest gear, which means your knee won’t bump it when you’re climbing. Here’s a gratuitous photo of my Roadini that doesn’t really illustrate this at all, but it is wearing a prototype OM-1 derailleur, and I did have to shift into my low gears to get there, so there is that:
I really, really like that bike.
Of course the alternative is to pick up an old Shimano RapidRise derailleur, but now that they’re coming back into fashion (actually they’re not coming back into fashion, since they never caught on the first time), a “NOS” unit will probably cost you at least as much as the Silver:
Technical analysis shows that NOS Rapid Rise derailleur securities may be overbought on the basis of the Relative Strength Index (RSI) and the stochastic oscillator—gauge momentum, as well as momentum divergence, the Average Directional Index (ADX), and other terms I found on the Internet, and you should probably expect a slight correction when Rivendell increases the Overall Low-Normal Derailleur Supply (OLNDS) in December.
Meanwhile, weekend riding indicates that fall foliage, while still frothy, may be on the cusp of a downturn:
Expect this to continue through the fall and winter seasons, with investors gradually returning to the market in the spring.