Rear derailleur varieties

There is a slightly bewildering array of derailleur options available, not all of which are intercompatible. Even when you’ve decided how much money you’re going to spend, it can take some thinking to work out exactly what you need.

For example, in their XT and XTR mountain bike ranges, Shimano currently make three different versions (top normal, low normal and Shadow), with two different cage choices for each, making a total of six different options. Road bikes have fewer varieties. Most bikes are fitted with a ’top-normal’ rear derailleur. This simply means that increasing the cable tension makes the derailleur shift the chain onto a larger sprocket (lower gear), while releasing the cable tension allows the chain to drop back to a smaller sprocket (higher gear). Less common are ’low normal’ derailleurs, which used to be called ’Rapid Rise’. These work in reverse, so that increasing the cable tension makes the derailleur pull the chain onto a smaller sprocket, while releasing the cable tension means the chain climbs onto…

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