Front Derailleur, question on cable pull

[elmar schrauth]

in three weeks we will have an adpater ,that converts shimano road derraileurs to toppull

[-Anomie-]

There is one other problem with running a MTB derailleur with a road crank that I haven't seen mentioned. Because MTB derailleurs are designed to "pick up" the chain from the granny gear on a mountain bike, the inner plate on them is much deeper than on a road derailleur, which means you have to raise the derailleur much higher to avoid the inner plate dragging on the inner chainring when the chain is on the big ring. This causes two problems: 1) Your front shifting suffers because the derailleur is so high and 2) The chain will drag on the little cross-piece at the back of the derailleur cage, especially when you are in the smaller cassette cogs.

Basically, it doesn't work well, if at all. I realize this is Weight Weenies, but the extra 20 grams from the pulley is worth it (unless you can find the adapter shown above).

[BORCHETTO]

I ride shimano equipped bikes with xt front derailleurs. I removed the lower part of the innerplates with a saw, and it works good (Will take picture later)

[grover]

you guys could try this. it just works on my mtb but requires a bit more shifter force to get it to throw out to the big ring. on the tighter chainline of a cross bike it may not be an issue.

PS. how much do those pulley wheel's weigh? a road derailleur is a fair bit lighter than mtb derailleurs anyway, wouldn't running the wheel and road derailleur still be lighter than a mtb derailleur?

[seankellyfan]

I believe what you need is a rare bird called a Shimano 400CX front deraileur. It is top pull and set up for a double crank. I have one and I ran it with a compact and had no problem. Im not using mine anymore if your interested. It is a 31.8 top pull and weighs 123 grams up here at 7,000 feet.

[stephenkchang]

http://cgi.ebay.com/Shimano-400CX-Front ... dZViewItem

There's one on ebay but it a bottom pull.