Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association - Forums

Among some other mechanical difficulties encountered Saturday was this interesting double pulley failure on my rear derailleur...

(http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2351/2429745290_6320af8849_o.jpg)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/krisscamera/2429745290/ (http://www.flickr.com/photos/krisscamera/2429745290/)

Funny thing was, the chain ran right along side the top pulley (which looks like it exploded) without much trouble.  The bottom one is missing about 3 teeth in a row, but kept the chain on, probably thanks to the narrow cage and sharp angle down there.  I could still shift relatively well around the middle of my cassette and was able to ride about half the course without too much difficulty.  The noise my drivetrain made was pretty awful, though!

I keep pretty good care of my stuff and had tuned my bike up myself Friday afternoon and everything was OK... I've never seen pulleys do this before!

nice...I lost 3 teeth on my lower pully awhile back but it was due to a tree branch/stick getting hung up in there.  Similarly I was able to continue riding too with a bit of noise.

I subscribe to the rule that its time for a new RD when you want a new RD.  Or when something catastrophic happens.

Not sure if you're interested but I just took off a shadow XT RD so I could switch to X.9.

Tell me more about the one you took off?  ;)
I might be interested

dz

DAG- thanks for the offer but I took the opportunity to shop and found a XT on Jenson for around $60 so I grabbed it... and new LX cranks, and cassette, and chain... oh, and a new BB tool since I don't have one for external cups...

So you can see that I subscribe to the, "well, if I'm going to buy this..." rule!  But to be fair, I haven't put a lot of money into this bike since I got it 8 years ago, so it deserves a little attention.  The cheapskate in me wanted to grab a pair of pulleys and call it a day for $20!

Yea Kris! That's the way to do it. Buying one part always leads to another. It's the domino effect.

Was that "rigid carbon fork ss" Dmitri asking about a derailer. supwitdat?

Nice shot. But you know, Tom, I have more than one bike in the stable, serving others, not just me, and those use gears.  ;)

dz

its a medium cage XT shadow derailluer, 7 rides on it before I swapped it out.  cant decide if its going to ebay or being posted to classifieds on various sites.

How do you like the X.9's? I'm planning to switch out this summer to X.9 shifters & dr's..

I'll throw my $.02 in on the X9's  - nice choice.  90% of the performance of the X0 at a fraction of the price.  They haven't been having the issues that the XO shifters have had either.   Their action is smooth and consistant thru the range of shifts.  Decent adjustability and if you run avid hydraulics, you can by an aftermarket adapter to run one clamp on the bar. 

I had my first ride with X.9's on Sunday.  I loved it.  I had already started to get used to the thumb downshifting because the new shimano xt pods have dual action so the shifting was easy to get used to.  The action is where its at though, no waiting.  I hit the shifter and it goes.  I also like the size of the levers better than the xt pod I had, it was also a bit easier to get dialed and I was even able to easily tune up on the fly, something that I think shimano makes more difficult.  One other very noticeable thing is that the X.9 RD is way burlier than anything shimano IMO. 

I have Juicy 7's on the way to upgrade from BB7's so I'll be switching to the Matchmakers soon. 

I moved over to Rockets early last year and I've loved them... I've stuck with Shimano RDs because they typically don't give me any problems, till now.

Andy has a set of Rockets, too and one of the other weird mech. problems I saw Saturday involved his left shifter- he broke the thing off with his knee!!  He said he snapped it when he was climbing out of the saddle.  I'm no where NEAR hitting mine when I'm up, but he said it hurt a good bit and it broke clean off.  Instant 1x9!

I've broken a few X9 shifter handles with my knee. Hurts like Hell!

I switched to Sram a few years ago and love it. The action is great and they are much easier to keep dialed in due to the 1:1 actuation ratio.

Yikes.  I don't know about the X9s but the levers on the Rockets are aluminum- ouch!  I haven't tried any 1:1s but I'm way happier with the SRAM offerings than anything I've used from Shimano.  I'm just glad to have some choices here and there.  It's always more fun to mix and match.

Ok, so it's looking like the general consensus point me to make the switch to X9s then.. cool! How the heck do you slam your knee into the shifters?!! That just sounds painful!! 

Busting a shifter with your knee is nothing. Ever hear about Paul's crash where the brake lever impailed the meat of his calf muscle. He had to pull it out. Ask him to show you the scar next time you see him.

OOOOOOHHHH MAN!! I JUST CAUGHT THE VISUAL FOR THAT!!! SHEEESH!!

I have been riding with the x9 shifters/rd for about a year and a half and I love them.  ;D  I had some ghost shifting early on.  Took it to the LBS for a tune and they have been pretty smooth since.  Quick, accurate shifting.  It will take a lot to get me back to a shimano rd.