sanjeevv1

Hi Guys
Newbie here. I have a touring bike with a 9 speed Shimano Tiagra long cage rear derailleur which needs to be replaced. I'm messing around with replacing the granny ring to a 22 or 24T and replacing the rear cassette as well to get better low range gearing. So I need something with a good chain wrap capacity. Someone suggested a 9 speed Deore long cage derailleur with a 45T capacity as a possible option. Would this be possible? WOuld a mountain bike derailleur work on my road touring bike? Any other replacement options that you folks could suggest..? Also, I have Shimano Sora Brifters as part of the set up.
thanks
Sanjeev

timdow

The mountain RD should work fine. With 9-speed the cable pull is the same for road and mountain, so the brifters should work fine. Cassette with bigger cogs (11-32T or 11-34T) would be fine after the RD change.

As for the rings, what do you have now? Do you have 26/36/46 or 48? With this setup if you have a 26T and want to go to 24, that should be fine. What you have to keep in mind here is that shifting may not be good,and you may experience the chain falling off if you go with a difference of more than 12T with the rings on the crankset.

sanjeevv1

Right now I have a 30-42-50 set up in the front. I replaced the 30T granny with a 24T. Added a n-gear stop to address the chain falling off from the 42 to the granny issue - and it seems to help about 80% of the time, but not always - so it needs some tweaking. I'm still kinda playing with it. But thanks for verifying the the Deore will work. I'll check it out.