Shimano 9100/8000 Shadow rear derailleur w/ short cable loop

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Bigger Gear
Posts: 560
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:58 pm
Location: Wet coast, Canada

by Bigger Gear

I'm in the process of rebuilding an older Trek Madone I have kicking around, with a mix of Dura-Ace 9000 (cranks/brakes) and Ultegra 8000 everywhere else. I have two other bikes with 9100 rear derailleurs that are external cable routing with the stop down the chainstay, and I find the Shadow rear derailleur is OK, though getting the wheel in and out is a bit more difficult. On this Trek however, the rear derailleur cable run from the stop to the adjuster is very short and I find wheel removal very difficult, and when I do so it really crunches the rear derailleur housing loop. I have cut the OT-RS900 to the recommended length of 11 cm from Shimano's guideline (~4cm from cable stop to hanger bolt hole). I have attached a picture that shows the housing loop with the wheel in. Upon removal I have to rotate the rear derailleur backwards and this compresses the cable loop and puts a tight bend in it. I sort of think after doing this a couple of times the cable friction in the rear loop has already increased.
IMG_2066.jpg
A semi-related problem I have also found is that this particular rear derailleur has a lot of side to side slop at the cage. If I grab it by the lower pulley I can wiggle side-side by ~2mm. This seems excessive, and the two 9100 derailleurs in the house are not nearly as sloppy. I'm probably going to return for exchange (I got it from Excel and I know they'll take care of it), but I'm just wondering if I should get a 6800 or 9000 rear derailleur that is "old school". I think I'll get a better cable run with a longer loop and not have the wheel removal issues. With 7900 on the bike before it was certainly easier to get the wheel in and out. Thoughts?

cunn1n9
Posts: 221
Joined: Sat Jan 15, 2011 1:24 am

by cunn1n9

Can’t comment on the core of your post but I concur that the new derailleur is much harder to extract a wheel out of compared to the previous design. I find it annoying actually as it feels like a lot of force goes into the derailleur when you extract wheel. Anyone else feel this way?


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Bigger Gear
Posts: 560
Joined: Fri Mar 27, 2009 6:58 pm
Location: Wet coast, Canada

by Bigger Gear

I totally agree, putting wheels in and out with this derailleur on a bike with a conventional derailleur hanger and the "B-link" is definitely more difficult. All reports indicate that using a direct-mount hanger makes everything work much better, and we can see this with teams like Sky and BMC using direct mount hangers. I'd hate to be a team mechanic doing a high-pressure wheel change using the B-link style derailleur. I'm about to pull the trigger on a DA 9000 rear derailleur on eBay and send this Ultegra R8000 back for refund.

TBH, I'm not super pumped on where Shimano is starting to take things. Forcing the Shadow design to try to propagate direct-mount hangers is kind of a tactic against SRAM and Campy, IMO. And now the rumours starting to flow about a 12spd group with a new freehub design, and they are only licensing the freehub to DT Swiss, trying to force people to choose Shimano wheel solutions. And the flat-mount disc standard being forced on by Shimano as well. I've been around a long time, and I know Shimano has always done stuff like this but overall the whole industry is heading way too far down the road of "our stuff is proprietary". I guess I've hit full retro-grouch :)

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